Plutarch
name, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Any specific edition of a work by Plutarch, often specifically Plutarch's Lives
"Both these English Plutarchs are here, two folios printed at London in 1657, and they once belonged to William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, and have his book-plates."
- 1 The classical historian and essayist Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus (46-120 C.E.). Often used as a byword for a biographer, to suggest that the writer is especially skilled or has other attributes associated with Plutarch.
"I am indebted to […]those masterly pen and ink portraits of many of our deceased ministers drawn by the lamented Professor Stoever, in the Evangelical Review, whom I designated some years ago as the Plutarch of the Lutheran Church of America."
Example
More examples"The story that Anaxagoras wrote a treatise on perspective as applied to scene-painting is most improbable; and the statement that he composed a mathematical work dealing with the quadrature of the circle is due to misunderstanding of an expression in Plutarch."
Etymology
Via Latin Plūtarchus from Ancient Greek Πλούτᾰρχος (Ploútărkhos).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.