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philosopher king

philosopher king noun: a hypothetical ideal ruler, trained in philosophy, who has a full understanding of the Platonic ideal of the Form of the Good, and uses this for the benefit of the state.

Noun

philosopher king (plural philosopher kings)

  1. A hypothetical ideal ruler, trained in philosophy, who has a full understanding of the Platonic ideal of the Form of the Good, and uses this for the benefit of the state.
  2. (figuratively) A very wise ruler.
    • He flies much about from place to place; now at Potsdam, now at Berlin, at Charlottenburg, Reinsberg; nothing loath to run whither business calls him, and appear in public: the gazetteer world, as we noticed, which has been hitherto a most mute world, breaks out here and there into a kind of husky...1862, Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great, volume III, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, book XI, page 6
    • […] what has been said about the State and the government is not a mere dream[…] that is to say, when the true philosopher kings are born in a State, one or more of them, despising the honours of this present world which they deem mean and worthless, […]1871, Benjamin Jowett, transl., Republic, translation of Πολιτεία by Plato

Forms of philosopher king

pluralphilosopher kings
alternative formphilosopher-king

Origin of philosopher king

The concept comes from Plato's Republic (circa 375 BCE), which considers the ideal rulers of a city state.

Questions about philosopher king

What does philosopher king mean?
Philosopher king means a hypothetical ideal ruler, trained in philosophy, who has a full understanding of the Platonic ideal of the Form of the Good, and uses this for the benefit of the state.
What part of speech is philosopher king?
Philosopher king is a noun.
What is the plural of philosopher king?
The plural of philosopher king is philosopher kings.

Words near philosopher king in the dictionary

  1. philosophe
  2. philosopheme
  3. philosophemes
  4. philosopher
  5. philosopher by fire
  6. philosopher king
  7. philosopher kings
  8. philosopher of fire
  9. philosopher's egg
  10. philosopher's eggs
  11. philosopher's game

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: philosopher king (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.

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