Doyen
noun, slang ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A commander in charge of ten men. obsolete
- 2 a man who is the senior member of a group wordnet
- 3 The senior, or eldest male member of a group.
"At every turn, Collyers's aggressive new management in London was out-maneuvering and out promoting the double doyens of the rarefied art auction world. Old-timers at Collyers referred to Christie's and Sotheby's as “the Cow and the Sow,” lumping them together in frequent attitudes of disdain, in an attempt to make up for decades of being the brunt of bad jokes."
- 4 A leading light, or exemplar of a particular practice or movement. colloquial
"Unlike the latter, however, Shifu's seriousness allowed no compromise; his criticism of Zhang ji even brought him into conflict with Wu Zhihui, one of the doyens of anarchism in China."
Example
More examples"He's regarded as a doyen of British humour."
Etymology
Borrowed from French doyen, from Late Latin decānus, from Latin decem. Compare the doublet dean.
Related phrases
More for "doyen"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.