Meaning of coryphée | Babel Free

Definitions

1. Synonym of coryphaeus.
   historical
2. The conductor or leader of the chorus of a drama.
   historical
3. The chief or leader of an interest or party.
   broadly
4. A ballet dancer ranking above a member of the corps de ballet and below a soloist.

Equivalents

Examples

“The piece [...] contains a passage for men's voices marked "Les Travailleurs," topped by a tenor solo (in alto clef) marked "Coryphée," a term originally meaning leader of the chorus, as in a Greek tragedy. [...] [T]he aforementioned "Coryphée" line grows out of a recitative for first tenor.”

“Two coryphées, or coryphæi, the term for the leader of a Greek chorus, were stationed in towers on either side of the stage. A device borrowed from Léon Chancerel's Mission de Jeanne d'Arc, the coryphées are present for the entire length of the drama. Like the messenger, they commented upon the action in a Manichean dialogue: one cheering on Joan of Arc, the other deriding her.”

“It was likewiſe cuſtomary to drink hard at theſe kinds of feaſts; yet it ſeems, according to the ſame author [Posidonius], that the coryphee, or head-gueſt, always began firſt, and put the cup, or rather pitcher, about to his next neighbour, till it had gone round: for, it ſeems, they all drank out of the ſame veſſel, and no man could drink till it came to his turn, nor refuſe when it did.”

“[...] Louis the Fourteenth,—that glory, / That Coryphée of all crown'd pates, / That pink of the Legitimates— [...]”

“And now, whip—whip—whip—as fast as St. Francis [of Assisi] himself, or St. Dominic Loricatus, coryphee of flagellants, could himself have flagellated.”

“Dined with Bryan: company, Shiel, Wyse, and a Mr. Finlay. Talked of an infinity of subjects, Shiel giving some good mimicries of Dan, and having evidently no vast respect for his great Coryphée.”

“Beneath this dramatic duel of "coryphées" on the open political scene, shifts have taken place in the relations between classes, and, no less important, profound changes in the psychology of the recently revolutionary masses.”

“Even the coryphee of the Annales school, Fernand Braudel, affirms the historian's traditional concern about time – although, as we will see below, he himself did more than any other historian to undermine the profession's preoccupation with time, movement and development.”

“You would have smiled inwardly on seeing with what admirable facility these coryphées of liberalism of 1828, these makers of 1830, easily sabre the first principles of civil liberty that we others, old royalists, would not abandon at any price.”

“Mademoiselle Coralie Montmorrillion, a talented artiste from the grand opera, at Paris, and now principal coryphée at the theatre royal— [...]”

“A newspaper was in his hand, joy in his eyes, and as many capers in his toes as would make the fortunes of a Coryphée.”

“The Coryphées now arrive, as well as the Corps de Ballet; the former holding a higher rank and receiving a higher salary than the latter. They are pretty trim-built girls, with sallow faces and large eyes—the pallor that overspreads their features resulting from cosmetics and late hours. They work very hard, and get very little sleep; but they appear to be very merry amongst themselves for all that.”

“Go into the wealthiest and gayest quarters of the town and you shall see maidens of fifteen tripping along in scores with their young cheeks bechalked and bedizened in a manner that almost puts to the shame a coryphée of the grand opera.”

“The sick throw away their crutches and dance like coryphées, the enfeebled strain to lift logs and boulders, [...]”

“Alarmed at what was to be performed there, New York's clergy had been threatening hellfire and damnation for weeks to all who went to see the dozens of beautiful coryphées imported from Milan, Berlin, Paris, and London in "as little as the law allows" promised by the management.”

“Ninette was only a sujet, a soloist, and a new-made one at that—one step up from the coryphées, and two from the quadrilles of the chorus, but not yet to the exalted status of the premier danseurs and as far from the etoiles as she was from the stars in the sky. Coryphées did not often have new shoes; one could see them backstage at rehearsal covering their old shoes with new silk, reblocking and reglueing the toes.”

“It was likewiſe cuſtomary to drink hard at theſe kinds of feaſts; yet it ſeems, according to the ſame author [Posidonius], that the coryphee, or head-gueſt, always began firſt, and put the cup, or rather pitcher, about to his next neighbour, till it had gone round: for, it ſeems, they all drank out of the ſame veſſel, and no man could drink till it came to his turn, nor refuſe when it did.”

“And now, whip—whip—whip—as fast as St. Francis [of Assisi] himself, or St. Dominic Loricatus, coryphee of flagellants, could himself have flagellated.”

“Even the coryphee of the Annales school, Fernand Braudel, affirms the historian's traditional concern about time – although, as we will see below, he himself did more than any other historian to undermine the profession's preoccupation with time, movement and development.”

CEFR level