[a. F. aristocrate (not on Gr. analogies), f. aristocrat-ie, -ique. A popular formation of the French Revolution.]
A member of an aristocracy; strictly, one of a ruling oligarchy; hence, one of a patrician order, a noble; occasionally, one who favors an aristocratic form of government (opposed to democrat).
1789. Belsham, Ess., II. xl. 473. The genuine spirit of the haughty aristocrate.
1790. W. Taylor, Let. fr. Paris, in Robberds, Mem., I. 69. All Paris is still in a ferment … These handbills and pamphlets … all tend to accuse the aristocrats of little or great treasons.
1792. A. Young, Trav. France, 225. Their excellencies, the aristocrats of Venice.
1793. Burke, Corr. (1844), IV. 151. The royalists of France, or as they are (perhaps as properly) called, the aristocrats.
1794. Coleridge, in Own Times, III. 968. In came that fierce Aristocrat, Our pursy woollen-draper.
1840. Gen. P. Thompson, Exerc. (1842), V. 408. The aristocrat-made law.
1849. Grote, Greece, II. xlvii. VI. 26. So violent and pointed did the scission of aristocrats and democrats become.
b. fig.
1883. G. Allen, in Knowledge, 3 Aug., 65/2. The honey-loving aristocrats of the insect world.
c. attrib. quasi-adj.
1873. Trollope, Australia, I. 475. The class of which I am now speaking is an aristocrat class.
