aristocrat

Definition

One of the aristocracy, nobility, or people of rank in a community; one of a ruling class; a noble (originally in Revolutionary France).

Etymology

From French aristocrate (“aristocrat”), attested once in the 16th century but recoined in the Revolutionary era, from aristocratie (“aristocracy”), from Medieval Latin aristocratia, from Ancient Greek ἀριστοκρατία (aristokratía), from ἄριστος (áristos, “best”) (compare Old English ar) + κράτος (krátos, “rule”). By surface analysis, aristo- + -crat.

Example Sentences

• "The remains of a Roman aristocrat have been unearthed by archaeologists in northern England."
• "Magazines kept aristocrats on the payroll to facilitate access to jet-set playgrounds like Corfu and Mustique."
• "Professor Fite, in The Platonic Legend, deprecates earlier idealization, and finds Plato to be an aristocrat, something of a snob, and the advocate of a restrictively organized society. […] Plato was, as has so often been observed, temperamentally an aristocrat. And he believed that the qualities needed in his rulers were, in general, hereditary, and that given knowledge and opportunity you could deliberately breed for them."

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