poet laureate

noun

plural poets laureate or poet laureates

1

: a poet honored for achievement

2

a

: a poet appointed for life by an English sovereign as a member of the royal household and formerly expected to compose poems for court and national occasions

b

: a poet appointed annually by the U.S. Library of Congress as a consultant and typically involved in the promotion of poetry

3

: one regarded by a country or region as its most eminent or representative poet

Examples of poet laureate in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The score comes from the music catalog of Bob Dylan, the poet laureate of rock whose independent songwriting earned him the Nobel Prize in literature. —Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 17 May 2024

That anthology found unlikely fame in the 1990s, when Joseph Brodsky, then the nation’s poet laureate, spearheaded a program to include a copy alongside the Gideons Bible in thousands of hotel and motel rooms around the country. —Alex Williams, New York Times, 3 May 2024

Word History

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Video

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Kids Definition

poet laureate

noun

plural poets laureate or poet laureates

1

: a poet appointed by an English ruler as a member of the royal household and formerly expected to write poems for court and national occasions

2

: a poet regarded by a country or region as its most outstanding