Crossword clues for patrician
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Patrician \Pa*tri"cian\, n. [L. patricius: cf. F. patricien.]
(Rom. Antiq.) Originally, 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 nobility.
A person of high birth; a nobleman.
One familiar with the works of the Christian Fathers; one versed in patristic lore. [R.]
--Colridge.
Patrician \Pa*tri"cian\, a. [L. patricius, fr. patres fathers or senators, pl. of pater: cf. F. patricien. See Paternal.]
(Rom. Antiq.) Of or pertaining to the Roman patres (fathers) or senators, or patricians.
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Of, pertaining to, or appropriate to, a person of high birth; noble; not plebeian.
Born in the patrician file of society.
--Sir W. Scott.His horse's hoofs wet with patrician blood.
--Addison.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
early 15c., "member of the ancient Roman noble order," from Middle French patricien, from Latin patricius "of the rank of the nobles, of the senators; of fatherly dignity," from patres conscripti "Roman senators," literally "fathers," plural of pater "father" (see father (n.)). Contrasted, in ancient Rome, with plebeius. Applied to noble citizens and higher orders of free folk in medieval Italian and German cities (sense attested in English from 1610s); hence "nobleman, aristocrat" in a modern sense (1630s). As an adjective, attested from 1610s, from the noun.
Wiktionary
a. 1 Of or pertaining to the Roman patres (fathers) or senators, or patricians. 2 Of, pertaining to, or appropriate to, a person of high birth; noble; not plebeian. n. 1 (context antiquity English) a member of any of the families constituting the populus Romanus, or body of Rome 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.
WordNet
adj. of the hereditary aristocracy or ruling class of ancient Rome or medieval Europe; of honorary nobility in the Byzantine empire [ant: plebeian, proletarian]
belonging to or characteristic of the nobility or aristocracy; "an aristocratic family"; "aristocratic Bostonians"; "aristocratic government"; "a blue family"; "blue blood"; "the blue-blooded aristocracy"; "of gentle blood"; "patrician landholders of the American South"; "aristocratic bearing"; "aristocratic features"; "patrician tastes" [syn: aristocratic, aristocratical, blue, blue-blooded, gentle]
n. a person of refined upbringing and manners
a member of the aristocracy [syn: aristocrat, blue blood]
Wikipedia
Patrician (from ) is a term that originally referred to a group of ruling class families in ancient Rome. Although the distinction was highly significant in the early republic, its relevance waned after the Struggle of the Orders (494 BC to 287 BC) and by the time of the Late Republic and Empire, membership in this group was of only nominal significance.
After the fall of the Western Empire it remained a high honorary title in the Byzantine Empire. Medieval patrician classes were once again formally defined groups of leading burgess families in many medieval Italian republics, such as Venice and Genoa, and subsequently "patrician" became a vague term used for aristocrats and the higher bourgeoisie in many countries.
Patricianship, the quality of belonging to a patriciate, began in the ancient world, where cities such as Ancient Rome had a class of patrician families whose members were the only people allowed to exercise many political functions. In the rise of European towns in the 10th and 11th centuries, the patriciate, a limited group of families with a special constitutional position, in Henri Pirenne's view, was the motive force. In 19th century central Europe, the term had become synonymous with the upper Bourgeoisie, except for the maritime republics of Italy, where it was the official title of the ruling local nobility.
With the establishment of the medieval Italian city-states and the maritime republics, the patriciate was a formally defined class of governing elites found within metropolitan areas such as Venice, Florence, Genoa and Amalfi and also in many of the Free imperial cities of Germany such as Nuremberg, Ravensburg, Augsburg, Konstanz and Lindau, including the independent Swiss towns of Bern, Basel, and Zurich.
As in Ancient Rome, patrician status could generally only be inherited. However, membership in the patriciate could be passed on through the female line . For example, if the union was approved by her parents, the husband of patrician daughter was granted membership in the patrician society Zum Sünfzen of the Imperial Free City of Lindau as a matter of right, on the same terms as the younger son of a patrician male (i.e., upon payment of a nominal fee) even if the husband was otherwise deemed socially ineligible. Accession to a patriciate through this mechanism was referred to as "erweibern."
In any case, only male patricians could hold, or participate in elections for, most political offices. Often, as in Venice, non-patricians had next to no political rights. Lists were maintained of who had the status, of which the most famous is the Libro d'Oro (Golden Book) of the Venetian Republic. From the fall of Hohenstaufen (1268) city-republics increasingly became principalities, like Milan and Verona, and the smaller ones were swallowed up by monarchical states or sometimes other republics, like Pisa and Siena by Florence, and any special role for the local patricians was restricted to municipal affairs. The few remaining patrician constitutions, notably that of Venice and Genoa, were swept away by the conquering French armies of the period after the French Revolution, though many patrician families remained socially and politically important, as some do to this day.
The term patrician is also used broadly in a number of European countries to refer to a social class until the late 19th or early 20th century, namely those families whose prominence was based on economic activity over many generations. For instance in Scandinavia, the term became synonymous with the mercantile elite.
Patrician may refer to:
- Patrician (ancient Rome), the original aristocratic families of Ancient Rome, and a synonym for "aristocratic" in modern English usage
- Patrician (post-Roman Europe), the governing elites of cities in parts of medieval and Early Modern Europe
- The adjective formed from Saint Patrick
- Youngstown Patricians, a former semi-professional football team based in Youngstown, Ohio, USA
- A student or former student of St Patrick's High School, Karachi, Pakistan
- A member of the Argentine Regiment of Patricians
- The Patrician, an annual publication of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry regiment
- Packard Patrician, a large luxury car during the 1950s
- Havelock Vetinari, the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series
- The Patrician (video game), a series of historical trading simulation computer games
Usage examples of "patrician".
Nielash Mousa, the Blesser of Sorbold, was the chief cleric of the patrician faith in the nation, and one of the five benisons of the Patriarch, his highest religious councilors.
Messala Rufus tried to cast the lots to see which of the patrician prefects of each decury of ten senators would become the first Interrex, Bursa vetoed.
After dinner the Marches had some of the local pastry, not so incomparable as the bread, with their coffee, which they had served them in a pavilion of the beautiful garden remaining to the hotel from the time when it was a patrician mansion.
Lately returned, as it should seem, from this embassy, he came forward in the Roman Senate and accused the Patrician Albinus of outstepping the bounds of loyalty to the Ostrogothic King in the letters which he had addressed to the Byzantine Emperor.
Whether, as Niebuhr maintains, all the free gentiles of the three tribes were called patres or patricians or whether the term was restricted to the heads of houses, it is certain that the head of the house represented it in the senate, and the vote in the curies was by houses, not by individuals en masse.
Syagrius inherited, as a patrimonial estate, the city and diocese of Soissons: the desolate remnant of the second Belgic, Rheims and Troyes, Beauvais and Amiens, would naturally submit to the count or patrician: and after the dissolution of the Western empire, he might reign with the title, or at least with the authority, of king of the Romans.
Earthside cigaret and wrinkled his patrician nose at the prevading smell of an old ship, two hundred years of cooking and sweat and machine oil.
He revived, indeed, the title of Patricians, but he revived it as a personal, not as an hereditary distinction.
The old man had been much fuller faced, although similarly moustached, but Henri Sanglier was patrician by comparison to his peasant-like father.
And so he was Christina was shown the patrician houses bordering the Singel, the narrowest house in Amsterdam, the noble mansions on the Keizers Gracht and the Heren Gracht, the narrow waterways leading from one gracht to the next.
The patrician Aspar might have placed the diadem on his own head, if he would have subscribed the Nicene creed.
Nay, on the contrary, several patricians had been condemned after their tribuneship, no plebeian.
Retain the dictatorship for a time, strengthen the plebeian element by ruthless proscriptions of patricians and by recruits from the provinces, unite the tribunitial, pontifical, and military powers in the imperator designated by the army, all elements existing in the constitution from an early day, and already developed in the Roman state, and you have the imperial constitution, which retained to the last the senate and consuls, though with less and less practical power.
That it was not the consular authority but the tribunitian power that he was rendering hateful and insupportable: which having been peaceable and reconciled to the patricians, was now about to be brought back anew to its former mischievous habits.
When this speech was approved with general consent, and the patricians rejoiced, that without the terrors of the tribunitian office, another and a superior power had been discovered to coerce the magistrates, overcome by the universal consent, they held the elections of military tribunes, who were to commence their office on the calends of October, and before that day they retired from office.