aristocracy
Americannoun
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a class of persons holding exceptional rank and privileges, especially the hereditary nobility.
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a government or state ruled by an aristocracy, elite, or privileged upper class.
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government by those considered to be the best or most able people in the state.
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a governing body composed of those considered to be the best or most able people in the state.
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any class or group considered to be superior, as through education, ability, wealth, or social prestige.
noun
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a privileged class of people usually of high birth; the nobility
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such a class as the ruling body of a state
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government by such a class
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a state governed by such a class
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a class of people considered to be outstanding in a sphere of activity
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Traditionally, the disproportionate concentration of wealth, social status, and political influence in the aristocracy has been resented by the middle class and lower class.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of aristocracy
First recorded in 1555–65; from Middle French aristocratie, from Medieval Latin aristocracia, aristocratia, from Greek aristokratía “rule of the best”; equivalent to aristo- + -cracy
Explanation
A person who's "born to rule" belongs to the ruling class, or aristocracy, and is "noble" just by being in the family line — whether they have done anything noble or not. In an aristocracy, a princess who doesn’t visit sick children or clear land mines is still a princess. "Rule of the best" or "by a privileged class" are 16th-century Latin meanings for aristocracy. There are examples of the "best" coming from ordinary society, no matter who their parents are, but often the aristocracy is made up of families who start ruling and keep the power in the family generation after generation. Kings and queens, princes and princesses, and dukes and earls, are all titles within an aristocracy, though some really hard-working and noble outsiders may earn a spot in the aristocracy too.
Vocabulary lists containing aristocracy
"On Women's Right to Vote" by Susan B. Anthony
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Ancient Greece - Introductory
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Her mother, the Dutch baroness Ella Van Heemstra, had authentic aristocracy, but was also “a one-woman panzer division.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 8, 2026
However, Huppert emphasised the social symbolism of a vampire aristocracy that draws its power by feeding on ordinary mortals.
From Barron's ● Feb. 18, 2026
But “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” is less concerned about the aristocracy than what life is like for smallfolk like Dunk, an orphan who spent his early childhood scraping by in Flea Bottom.
From Salon ● Jan. 17, 2026
Most convicts had been found guilty of theft, with many being repeat offenders, but some were deported for crimes as petty as trampling on the turnips of the local aristocracy.
From BBC ● Aug. 19, 2025
The North has those huge bloody cities and a thousand religions, and the only aristocracy is the aristocracy of wealth.
From "The Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War" by Michael Shaara
From this combination a meritocracy emerged, supplanting aristocracies in lands where feudalism had been weakened by progress.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 10, 2026
This level of self-regard in a writer and thinker as justifiably exalted as Smith may explain why our nation is turning on reading: aristocracies breed resentment among the proles.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 28, 2025
Representative government likely has deeper roots than monarchies or aristocracies.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 15, 2022
Men’s Final Four berths, of course, come to basketball aristocracies in Lexington, Ky., or Durham or Chapel Hill, N.C., or, of late, suburban Philadelphia.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 5, 2019
In the Adams formulation, aristocracies were to society as the passions were to the individual personality, permanent fixtures susceptible to disciplined containment and artful channeling, but never altogether removable.
From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
