Word.ws English Dictionary

Four Horsemen

Four Horsemen proper noun: the four main proponents of new atheism: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens. Also the ellipsis of Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Proper noun

the Four Horsemen

  1. (humorous) The four main proponents of new atheism: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens.
    • When most people think of the authors who launched the atheist renaissance in the 21st century, they think of the “The Four Horsemen”—Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens—and their earthshaking bestsellers.2013, Dale McGowan, Atheism For Dummies, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 218
    • Today's culture is certainly more sympathetic to faith than the noughties, when millennials like me grew up ensnared by the “Four Horsemen” of New Atheism and their era-defining bestsellers: […].2025 May 31, Tanjil Rashid, “Finding their religion”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 9

Also used as

Four Horsemen is also the ellipsis of Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Questions about Four Horsemen

What does Four Horsemen mean?
Four Horsemen means the four main proponents of new atheism: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens.
What part of speech is Four Horsemen?
Four Horsemen is a proper noun.

Words near Four Horsemen in the dictionary

  1. four flushed
  2. four flushes
  3. four flushing
  4. four foot
  5. Four Freedoms
  6. Four Horsemen
  7. Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
  8. four hundred
  9. Four Knights Game
  10. Four Knights' Game
  11. four L

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Four Horsemen (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Four Horsemen.wav.

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