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Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Phi Beta Kappa

undergraduate honorary society, 1776, from initials of Greek philosophia biou kybernetes "philosophy, guide of life."

Usage examples of "phi beta kappa".

I pictured Captain Jack Tierney weighing the pros and cons of selling his soul to Satan with a Phi Beta Kappa key and a hard-on for the City of Los Angeles.

Gaunt was unsurprised to see a gold Phi Beta Kappa chain strung from the watch pocket of his vest.

Jane, my first wife, won her Phi Beta Kappa key at Swarthmore College over the objections of the History Department.

A Harvard type, wearing a suit with a vest adorned with a Phi Beta Kappa key on a watch chain, sat off by himself reading through a file of papers.

Both men sported regalia: Phi Beta Kappa key for the lawyer, lodge pins dotting the cop's lapels.

He had on a terribly baggy but good tweed suit of Rumfoord's, complete with a Phi Beta Kappa key that hung from the watch chain that spanned the front of the vest.

She was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Yale, and of Columbia University with a degree in clinical psychology, plus a doctorate in parapsychology.