Word.ws English Dictionary

ring leader

ring leader is the alternative form of ringleader.

Meaning of ringleader

Noun

ringleader (plural ringleaders)

  1. A leader of a group of people, especially an unofficial group.
    • Once, on a confident whim, I approached the group of popular girls in an attempt to broaden my circle. Their ringleader took one glance at my new Aeropostale T-shirt and whispered to her clones, “Yeah, Aero's definitely out now.”2017, Allyson Kennedy, Can't Beat the Heart of a Carolina Girl
  2. A person who starts and leads a disturbance (such as a riot), a conspiracy, or a criminal gang.
    • The police arrested the ringleaders of the smuggling operation.

Forms of ring leader

pluralring leaders

Questions about ring leader

What is ring leader the alternative form of?
Ring leader is the alternative form of ringleader.

Words near ring leader in the dictionary

  1. ring knockers
  2. ring lamp
  3. ring lamps
  4. ring laser
  5. ring lasers
  6. ring leader
  7. ring leaders
  8. ring light
  9. ring lights
  10. ring mail
  11. ring modulation

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ring leader (page history and authors); ringleader (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:

Cite this entry: “ring leader.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ring_leader. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.