Aristocrat

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /ˈærɪstÉ™kræt/
• US IPA: /əˈrɪstÉ™kræt/

Origin

From French aristocrate (a word from the French Revolution), from aristocratie., from ἄριστος (aristos, "best") (compare Old English ar) + κράτος (kratos, "rule").

Full definition of aristocrat

Noun

1. One of the aristocracy, nobility, or people of rank in a community; one of a ruling class; a noble (originally in Revolutionary France).
2. A proponent of aristocracy; an advocate of aristocratic government.
• 1974: Plato (author) and Desmond Lee (translator), (2nd edition, revised; Penguin Classics; ISBN 0140440488), Translator’s Introduction, pages 51 and 53: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.

Hyponyms

Related terms

• aristocratic