patrician

plural patricians · alternative obsolete patritian

1. Ancient RomeA member of any of the families constituting the populus Romanus, or body of Roman citizens, before the development of the plebeian order; later, one who, by right of birth or by special privilege conferred, belonged to the senior class of Romans, who, with certain property, had by right a seat in the Roman Senate.

   Noble Patricians, Patrons of my right, / Defend the iuſtice of my Cauſe with Armes.

   c. 1588–1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i], page 31, column 1

2. A person of high birth; a nobleman.

   The emperor elevated several loyal families to the status of patricians.

3. One familiar with the works of the Christian Fathers; one versed in patristic lore or life.

comparative more patrician · superlative most patrician · alternative obsolete patritian

1. Of or pertaining to the Roman patres (“fathers”) or senators, or patricians.

   The cognomen was first used in patrician families, who were distinguished from the plebeians by their three names.

   1945, E[lizabeth] G[idley] Withycombe, “Introduction”, in The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page xiv

   1 more example

   […] I ſee Th’ Inſulting Tyrant prancing o’er the Field Strow’d with Rome’s Citizens, and drench’d in Slaughter, His Horſe’s Hoofs wet with Patrician Blood.

   1712 (date written), [Joseph] Addison, Cato, a Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1713, →OCLC, Act I, scene i, pages 1-2

2. Of or pertaining to a person of high birth; noble; not plebeian; aristocratic.

   born in the patrician file of society

   1829 May 2, [Walter Scott], Anne of Geierstein; or, The Maiden of the Mist. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] [Ballantyne and Company] for Cadell and Co., […]; London: Simpkin and Marshall, […], →OCLC

3. Characteristic of or appropriate to a person of high birth; classy.

   Hanks' taste in projects and directors is undoubtedly patrician and with a few exceptions like 1993's Philadelphia, the first mainstream film about the Aids crisis, rarely provocative

   2021 February 9, Christina Newland, “Is Tom Hanks part of a dying breed of genuine movie stars?”, in BBC

4. Politically active to help people in lower classes, especially in a patronizing or condescending way.

   It will speed the shrivelling of the patrician “one nation” Tories, who tried to curb the extremes of Thatcherism and ended by providing its veils.

   1995, New Statesman Society

   2 more examples

   Saint-Simon was certainly a radical, and hostile to inherited privilege, but his bourgeois 'socialism' was of a patrician kind. Science, being a firm and certain kind of knowledge, a 'religion of Newton' or 'cult of Reason' essentially plays the key role in his grand scheme for social engineering.

   2013 July 18, Doctor Martin Parker, Valerie Fournier, Patrick Reedy, The Dictionary of Alternatives: Utopianism and Organization, Zed Books Ltd., →ISBN

   Where Ruskin's patrician socialism sought to create better conditions and 'higher' aspirations for the 'Workmen and Labourers of Great Britain', Sickert painted his working- and lower-middle-class subjects as if history, in the advance of mass culture and popular democracy, were on their side.

   2022 September 8, Michael Bird, This is Tomorrow: Twentieth-century Britain and its Artists, Thames & Hudson, →ISBN

1. not comparableOf or relating to Saint Patrick.