eleutherarch

English

Etymology

From eleutheri and -arch.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɛˈljuːθəˌɹɑːk/

Noun

eleutherarch (plural eleutherarchs)

1. (literature, gothic) The leader of the eleutheri.
   • 1813, Thomas Jefferson Hogg, The Memoirs of Prince Alexy Haimatoff, London: T. Hookham, jun., and E.T. Hookham, page 173:

     Bruhle introduced him to me as the principal of the university, and the Eleutherarch.

   • 1818, Thomas Love Peacock, chapter 2, in Nightmare Abbey, Hookham, published 2003:

     He slept with Horrid Mysteries under his pillow, and dreamed of venerable eleutherarchs and ghastly confederates holding midnight conventions in subterranean caves.

2. The leader of a secret society, usually mysterious and sinister
   • 2000, Nigel Leask, “Irish Republicans and Gothic Eleutherarchs: Pacific Utopias in the Writings of Theobald Wolfe Tone and Charles Brockden Brown”, in Huntington Library Quarterly‎^[1], volume 63, number 3, pages 347-67:

     In contrast to Godwin's Burkean Falkland, however, Ludloe turns out to be a conspirator, a kind of revolutionary eleutherarch straight out of the pages of Robison's Proofs of a Conspiracy.