magnate

plural magnates

1. Powerful industrialist; captain of industry.

   I have decided to become an oil magnate, after spending quite some time reading the dictionary definition of the word magnate.

   2 more examples

   With a suitable amount of life experience under her belt, she sat down and conjured up the sexiest, most delicious Italian wine magnate she could imagine, had him make his biggest mistake, and gave him a wife on the run.

   2014, Jennifer Hayward, The Magnate's Manifesto, Harlequin, →ISBN, page 2

   Sir Richard Branson is an English business magnate, best known as the founder of the multimillion-pound Virgin Group, which consists of more than four hundred companies.

   2015, Rod Judkins, The Art of Creative Thinking, Hachette UK, →ISBN

2. A person of rank, influence or distinction in any sphere.

   He mingled with the Magnates of his land; / Join'd the carousals of the great and gay, […]

   1814, [Lord Byron], “[Lara, a Tale.] Canto I.”, in Lara, a Tale. Jacqueline, a Tale, London: […] [F]or J[ohn] Murray, […], [b]y T[homas] Davison, […], →OCLC, stanza VII, page 10, lines 98–99

   1 more example

   […] but there is not an illiterate Justice of the Peace, or rural magnate in the form of a country squire, that would not detect such a man as an empirie at once, if he rested his claim to such an appointment on the score of his scholarship.

   1839 November 2, “Brindley in Manchester”, in New Moral World, page 857

3. historicalIn medieval and early modern Italy, a member of a legally defined category of especially wealthy patrician families, often deprived of the right to political participation by republican governments.

   Those considered politically dangerous could be excluded from office by declaring them magnates, while cancellation of magnate status was a mark of favour, a means of political patronage.

   2006, Christine Shaw, Popular Government and Oligarchy in Renaissance Italy, →ISBN, page 152