authority figure

1. 1.

   someone who is regarded as an authority by someone else

   Broaderauthority

Questions about authority figure

What does authority figure mean?

authority figure means "someone who is regarded as an authority by someone else".

Is authority figure a common word?

authority figure is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.