Definition of "statesman" []

• A man who is a leader in national or international affairs. (noun)
• A male political leader regarded as a disinterested promoter of the public good. (noun)
• A man who is a respected leader in a given field: "a mature statesman of American letters” ( Toby Thompson). (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "In the sentence, _Webster, the statesman, was born in New Hampshire_, the noun _statesman_ modifies the subject _Webster_ by explaining what or which"
• "Daniel Webster was a great statesman, Therefore Daniel Webster was farsighted_, sounds simple; but two generations have disagreed on the question whether Webster was a great statesman; and both _great statesman_ and _farsighted_ are such vague and inclusive terms that one would either accept a general principle of which they are terms as a harmless truism, or else balk at being asked to grant a proposition which might have unexpected meanings thrust into it."
• "When an American publisher asked me to write a book about Winston Churchill the man-not the statesmanfor the statesman is his own best biographer-I was faced with the problem of how to make this incredibly gifted man credible to the reader."