Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Aristocracy |
AristocracyNoun1. A privileged class holding hereditary titles. 2. The most powerful members of a society. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "aristocracy" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1602. (references) |
Etymology: Aristocracy \Ar`is*toc"ra*cy\, noun; plural Aristocracies. [expression of Greek origin; best to be strong, to rule, strength; is perhaps from the same root as English arm, and originally meant fitting: compare to the French expression aristocratie. See Arm, and Create, which is related to Greek]. (Websters 1913) |
| Domain | Definition |
Satire | ARISTOCRACY, n. Government by the best men. (In this sense the word is obsolete; so is that kind of government.) Fellows that wear downy hats and clean shirts -- guilty of education and suspected of bank accounts. Source: Devil's Dictionary. |
Literature | Aristocracy The cold shade of the aristocracy - i.e. the unsympathising patronage of the great. The expression first occurs in Sir W. F. P. Napier's History of the Peninsular War. The word "aristocracy" is the Greek aristo-cratia (rule of the best-born). Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
An aristocracy is a form of government in which rulership is in the hands of an "upper class" known as aristocrats. (The Greek origins of the word aristocracy imply the meaning of "rule by the best".) This inevitably means those with the power to hold wealth and to define who remains in poverty - or, often, slavery.
Civics under this form is more or less completely determined by the ethical code of aristocrats, and what issues can be raised, and which not, are almost entirely a matter of the etiquette they follow. For instance, in Ancient Athens or the Confederate States of America it was not polite to challenge the institution of slavery which supported the state, as this was a direct conflict of interest with the way that aristocracy not only sustained but defined itself.
Aristocracy is usually combined with a monarchy, in that some functions of government were administered by the monarch (usually also a member of the aristocracy) with the remainder being held by other aristocrats. Thus a balance of power was achieved that would satisfy both the aristocrats' desire to limit competition with each other, and their desire to not be subject to arbitrary power of an absolute monarchy. For example, the Magna Carta was forced on King John by barons concerned with just such powers.
Generally, this form of government evolved out of earlier feudal systems, but often it was feudal mechanisms that stood in its way - in the Magna Carta's case, for instance, John had previously made himself vassal of the Pope, in effect, forcing everyone in England into a strict hierarchy of obligations up to the Church. Thus, when the barons forced John to sign the document, the Church was forced to object and declare it void, as this was a usurpation of rights that ordinary citizens had under feudalism to appeal directly up to the Pope.
Historically, the obligations of aristocrats were to raise and equip armies, and physically lead them into brutal and bloody battles, in order to protect the state itself from any invaders - and occasionally to conquer a neighboring state, and divide its capital amongst themselves. By the 16th century these obligations were on the wane - the popular work Don Quixote was a satire of this situation, where the nobility had no longer obligations but retained all its privileges, wherein a noble knight sets forth to do battle for fair maidens, free the oppressed, and so forth. These obligations by this time began to appear ridiculous, if indeed they had ever been anything but - chivalry being largely a product of medieval romance.
Historically, the term "aristocracy" has usually denoted a hereditary elite, but the word has been applied to non-hereditary elites as well, usually those created by commerce and especially shipping and railroads in trade-dependent societies. The terms "railroad baron" and "shipping magnate" reflect this.
American Revolutionary figure John Jay stated the basic principle of aristocracy bluntly:
Many historical hereditary aristocracies justified their power by a belief in "rule by right of birth" or "divine right". This belief states that there is a particular caste of hereditary nobility which has the greatest right---or greatest ability---to rule, that ability being inherited through blood ties ("blue blood"). This concept enjoyed great support, at least among the nobility, in some places and time periods where rule by martial prowess and conquest gave way to longer and longer "dynasties" of inherited power. Examples of aristocratic societies in this style are Europe during the late medieval and Renaissance periods and the Ashikaga Shogunate in Japan.Etiquette
Balances
Obligations
Money
Blood
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Aristocracy."
Synonyms: AristocracySynonyms: gentry (n), nobility (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Government | Monarchy; kinghood, kingship; royalty, regality; aristarchy, aristocracy; oligarchy, democracy, theocracy, demagogy; commonwealth; dominion; heteronomy; republic, republicanism; socialism; collectivism; mob law, mobocracy, ochlocracy; vox populi, imperium in imperio; bureaucracy; beadledom, bumbledom; stratocracy; military power, military government, junta; feodality, feudal system, feudalism. |
Nobility | High life, haute monde; upper classes, upper ten thousand; the four hundred; elite, aristocracy, great folks; fashionable world; (fashion). |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Aristocracy |
| English words defined with "aristocracy": Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Aristocracies, aristocrat, aristocratic, aristocratical ♦ blue, blue blood, blue-blooded ♦ finished ♦ gentle ♦ high life ♦ Junker ♦ middle class ♦ noble ♦ Optimate, Optimates ♦ patrician, Patriciate ♦ ruined ♦ samurai, Sans-culotte ♦ Turgot ♦ Upper ten thousand. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "aristocracy": ARISTOCRACY ♦ misdemeanor ♦ Prelate, Prince's Peers ♦ Sucking Young Patricians. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "aristocracy": Aristocrat ♦ Jesuitocracy ♦ Neocracy. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Movie/TV Titles | American Aristocracy (1916) Aristocracy (1914) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Theater & Movies | |||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | The aristocracy of color. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Southern ass-stock-crazy (Southern aristocracy). Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Author | Quotation |
Georg C. Lichtenberg | Actual aristocracy cannot be abolished by any law: all the law can do is decree how it is to be imparted and who is to acquire it. |
John Adams | You are apprehensive of monarchy; I, of aristocracy. I would therefore have given more power to the President and less to the Senate. |
Thomas Carlyle | Aristocracy of feudal parchment has passed away with a mighty rushing; and now, by a natural course, we arrive at aristocracy of moneybag. |
Wendell Phillips | Aristocracy is always cruel. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Author | Date | Quotation |
Communist Manifesto | 1848 | The aristocracy, in order to rally the people to them, waved the proletarian alms-bag in front for a banner. (reference) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Title | Author | Quote |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | One of the false ideas of the restoration in point of aristocracy and nobility was its faith in the particle. |
Walden | Thoreau, Henry David | Their authors are a natural and irresistible aristocracy in every society, and, more than kings or emperors, exert an influence on mankind. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Economic History | Mauritania | Aristocrat and servant castes developed, yielding "white" (aristocracy) and "black" Moors (the enslaved indigenous class). (references) |
Burundi | A king (mwani) headed a princely aristocracy (gwana) which owned most of the land and required a tribute, or tax, from local farmers and herders. (references) | |
Mongolia | In an effort at swift socioeconomic reform, the leftist government applied extreme measures which attacked the two most dominant institutions in the country--the aristocracy and the religious establishment. (references) | |
Lexicography | Devil's Dictionary | MISDEMEANOR, n. An infraction of the law having less dignity than a felony and constituting no claim to admittance into the best criminal society. By misdemeanors he essays to climb Into the aristocracy of crime. O, woe was him! -- with manner chill and grand "Captains of industry" refused his hand, "Kings of finance" denied him recognition And "railway magnates" jeered his low condition. He robbed a bank to make himself respected. They still rebuffed him, for he was detected. S.V. Hanipur |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Term | Phrase(s) |
John Adams | 1797-1801 | To this I answer, if parliament is to be our supreme legislature, we shall be under a complete oligarchy or aristocracy, not the British constitution, which this writer himself defines a mixture of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Aristocracy" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 99.61% of the time. "Aristocracy" is used about 509 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 99.61% | 507 | 11,929 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.2% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Noun (common) | 0.2% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 509 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "aristocracy": intellectual aristocracy ♦ landed aristocracy. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "aristocracy": semi-aristocracy. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
aristocracy | 24 |
aristocracy british | 6 |
the english aristocracy | 6 |
aristocracy french | 3 |
american aristocracy | 3 |
aristocracy in landowning rome wealthy | 3 |
aristocracy democracy vs | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "aristocracy"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Afrikaans | aristokrasie. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | aristokraci (gentility, gentle, gentlefolks). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | حكومة النبلاء, حكومة الأخيار, طبقة راقية (elite), الارستوقراطية, أرستقراطية. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | аристокрация (nobility, peerage, quality). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 貴族社會 , 贵族"府. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | aristokracie (nobility, upper class), šlechtic (aristocrat, noble, nobleman, peer). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | aristocratie, patriciaat. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Esperanto | aristokratio, aristokrataro. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | aristokratia, ylimystö, ylhäisö (the upper classes). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | aristocratie. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Frisian | aristokrasy. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | Aristokratie, Adel (nobility, nobleness, peerage, title). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | αριστοκρατία (nobility, society). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | מעמ" "אצילים (peerage), אצילות (lordship, magnanimity, nobility, nobleness), אצול" (nobility). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | arisztokrácia (peerage), főnemesség (peerage). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Indonesian | aristokrasi, ningrat (nobility), kebangsawanan. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | aristocrazia. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | 貴族"治 , 華冑 (nobility), アラ 語 (a la mode, alibi, alkali, alligator, American league, Aramaic, arcadia, archaic, archaic smile, archaism, arena, aria, aristocrat). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | きぞくせいじ, かちゅう (all over the house, central China, in the fire, in the flames, nobility, style, vortex, whole family), アリストクラシー . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | ooashlaght (subity, sublime). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Papiamen | aristokrasia. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | aristocracyay aristocracia (gentility, nobility, nobleness, peerage). (various references) aristocraţie (gentlefolk, nobility, peerage), protipendadã. (various references) аристократия (high life, notables, persons of rank, upper class). (various references) aristokratija, plemstvo (gentlefolk, gentlefolks, gentlehood, nobility, nobleness, noblesse, peerage). (various references) aristocracia. (various references) aristokrati (gentry). (various references) ชนชั้นสูง (society), สมาชิกของกลุ่มชนชั้นสูง, การปกครองโ"ยชนชั้นสูง, ประเทศหรือรัฐที่ปกครองโ"ยชนชั้นสูง. (various references) asiller (gentlefolks, noblesse, peerage, the upper ten), aristokrasi (patriciate), soylular (gentlefolks, nobility), elit tabaka (cream of society, elite). (various references) аристократія (nobility, noblesse, notable, optimacy). (various references) tầng lớp quý tộc chế độ quý tộc, nước do tầng lớp quý tộc thống trị, chính phủ của tầng lớp quý tộc thống trị những người tiêu biểu nhất. (various references) pendefigaeth (peerage). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Misspellings | |
"Aristocracy" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: arisocracy, aristocacy, aristocrary, aristocrasy. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "aristocracy" (pronounced e'rustÄ"krusē) |
| 7 | -t Ä" k r u s ē | autocracy. |
| 6 | -Ä" k r u s ē | bureaucracy, democracy, hypocrisy, theocracy. |
| 5 | -k r u s ē | meritocracy, secrecy. |
| 4 | -r u s ē | conspiracy, heresy, leprosy, piracy, pleurisy. |
| 3 | -u s ē | accuracy, adequacy, advocacy, Argosy, candidacy, celibacy, confederacy, courtesy, degeneracy, delicacy, diplomacy, ecstasy, embassy, fallacy, fantasy, Geodesy, idiocy, illegitimacy, illiteracy, immediacy, inaccuracy, inadequacy, intimacy, intricacy, jealousy, legacy, legitimacy, literacy, lunacy, obstinacy, Odyssey, papacy, pharmacy, policy, primacy, privacy, prophecy, supremacy, surrogacy. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-c-c-i-o-r-r-s-t-y" | |
-3 letters: acrostic, cariocas, caryatic, isocracy, scarcity. | |
-4 letters: acrotic, arctics, carioca, caritas, carrots, carroty, corsair, ostiary, ostraca, ricracs, rosaria, satyric, trocars. | |
-5 letters: accost, actors, aorist, aortas, aortic, arctic, arista, aristo, arrays, astray, cacaos, carats, carrot, casita, castor, coacts, coatis, corsac, costar, crista, cystic, racist, rarity, ratios, riatas, ricrac, rosary, rostra, rotary, sartor, satori, scarry, scoria. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-c-c-i-o-r-r-s-t-y" | |
+5 letters: aristocratically, crystallographic. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)41 72 69 73 74 6F 63 72 61 63 79 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references).- .-. .. ... - --- -.-. .-. .- -.-. -.--. |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01000001 01110010 01101001 01110011 01110100 01101111 01100011 01110010 01100001 01100011 01111001 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)A r i s t o c r a c y |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0041 0072 0069 0073 0074 006F 0063 0072 0061 0063 0079 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)3584758586816984676991 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Quotations: Familiar | 9. Quotations: Historic 10. Quotations: Fiction 11. Quotations: Non-fiction 12. Quotations: Speeches | 13. Usage Frequency 14. Expressions 15. Expressions: Internet 16. Translations: Modern | 17. Derivations 18. Rhymes 19. Anagrams 20. Orthography | 21. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
