archon

UK/ˈɑː(ɹ)kən/US/ˈɑː(ɹ)kən/

nounC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechleans written

Other forms: archons

An archon was a chief magistrate in an ancient state. The nine archons.

In Athens the year was named after one of them, which is how dates were recorded. The word survives in English mostly in writing about Greece and in invented worlds.

Definitions of archon

1nounarchonA chief magistrate in an ancient or invented state.C2
“The archon held office for one year and could not be reappointed.”

archon is an official.

Where it comes from

Greek archon is the participle of archein, to rule.

Ancient Greek
ἄρχων
English, today
archon

Built from

ἄρχω · Ancient Greek — to rule

From Ancient Greek ἄρχων, a noun use of the present participle of ἄρχω (“to rule”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

archon in the wild

The title is derived from the words polemos ('war') and archon ('ruler, leader') and translates as 'warleader' or 'warlord'.
Polemarch
The title held a high position in Athenian society, alongside the archon eponymos and the archon basileus.
Polemarch
The unnamed 7th-century Serbian ruler or Serbian archon is a figure known from the 10th-century Byzantine chronicle, De Administrando Imperio.
Unnamed 7th-century Serbian ruler
Archon basileus was a Greek title, meaning "king magistrate"; the term is derived from the words archon "magistrate" and basileus "king" or "sovereign".
Archon basileus
After 683 BC the offices were held for only a single year, and the year was named after the eponymous archon.
Eponymous archon

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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