Wiktionary

patrician

See also: Patrician

English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Middle French patricien, from Latin patricius, derived from patrēs cōnscrīptī (“Roman senators”).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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patrician (plural patricians)

  1. (Ancient Rome) A 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.
  2. A person of high birth; a nobleman.
  3. One familiar with the works of the Christian Fathers; one versed in patristic lore or life.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Adjective

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patrician (comparative more patrician, superlative most patrician)

  1. Of or pertaining to the Roman patres (“fathers”) or senators, or patricians.
  2. Of or pertaining to a person of high birth; noble; not plebeian; aristocratic.
  3. Characteristic of or appropriate to a person of high birth; classy.
    • 2021 February 9, Christina Newland, “Is Tom Hanks part of a dying breed of genuine movie stars?”, in BBC‎[1]:
      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
  4. Politically active to help people in lower classes, especially in a patronizing or condescending way.
    • 1995, New Statesman Society:
      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.
    • 2013 July 18, Doctor Martin Parker, Valerie Fournier, Patrick Reedy, The Dictionary of Alternatives: Utopianism and Organization, Zed Books Ltd., →ISBN:
      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.
    • 2022 September 8, Michael Bird, This is Tomorrow: Twentieth-century Britain and its Artists, Thames & Hudson, →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.
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Further reading

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Romanian

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Etymology

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Borrowed from French patricien.

Noun

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patrician m (plural patricieni)

  1. (historical) patrician

Declension

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Declension of patrician
singular plural
indefinite articulation definite articulation indefinite articulation definite articulation
nominative/accusative (un) patrician patricianul (niște) patricieni patricienii
genitive/dative (unui) patrician patricianului (unor) patricieni patricienilor
vocative patricianule patricienilor
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