Meaning of aristocracy in English

Table of contents
  1. Pronunciation
  2. Noun
    1. Etymology
    2. Definitions

  1. Pronunciation

    /ˌɛrəˈstɑkrəsi/

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  1. Noun

    aristocracy

    Etymology

    late 15th century: from Old French aristocratie, from Greek aristokratia, from aristos‘best’ + -kratia‘power’. The term originally denoted the government of a state by its best citizens, later by the rich and well born, hence the sense ‘nobility’, regardless of the form of government (mid 17th century)

    Definitions

    1. a privileged class holding hereditary titles
  2. 2. the most powerful members of a society

Famous quotes

  • « Every American poet feels that the whole responsibility for contemporary poetry has fallen upon his shoulders, that he is a literary aristocracy of one. »
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  • « Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated. »
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  • « There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents. »
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  • « Wherever magistrates were appointed from among those who complied with the injunctions of the laws, Socrates considered the government to be an aristocracy. »
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  • « We are the only real aristocracy in the world: the aristocracy of money. »
    George Bernard Shaw

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