The Collaborative International Dictionary
Optimate \Op"ti*mate\, a. [L. optimas, -atis, adj., optimates,
n. pl., the adherents of the best men, the aristocrats, fr.
optimus the best.]
Of or pertaining to the nobility or aristocracy. [R.] -- n. A
nobleman or aristocrat; a chief man in a state or city. [R.]
--Chapman.
Wiktionary
n. (context historical English) A member of the patrician ruling class in republican Ancient Rome; an aristocrat, a noble.
Usage examples of "optimate".
With a start the optimate realized that they were Huns, or at least Sarmatians.
Optimate and Popularis, as they give a false impression of Roman political solidarity to a party-acclimatized modern reader.
But the armigers and optimates of the city favored the highest slopes, near the Citadel wall.
When warm weather came, we trooped through the necropolis on our way there--first past the old exalted sepulchers nearest the Citadel wall, then between the vainglorious death houses of the optimates, then through the stony forest of common monuments (we trying to appear highly respectable when we had to pass the burly guards leaning on their polearms).
The armigers and optimates want purer water--not that they drink it, but for their fishponds, and for bathing and boating.
The Optimates were 'an upper-class Christ Church club, mainly old Etonian,' wrote the unknown author.
The political complexion of the Optimates, to whom Haydon's father had also in his day belonged, was unashamedly conservative.
Fanshawe, long dead, was a passionate Empire man and 'the Optimates were his private selection tank for The Great Game', ran the preface.
There was also a school of thought which held that Fanshawe of the Christ Church Optimates had been acting as a talent-spotter for Moscow Centre as well as for the Circus, Haydon explained: 'Really, what can one do with asses like that?
Enough of this and you’ll be on your feet with the optimates screeching for a touchdown.
Even the kings and the optimates, at death, are delivered into the hands of his muffled priests.
All the armigers and even most of the optimates, and of course the exultants have always known.
Ac, propter hoc injuriae genus, Lacedaemonii Lysandrum Ephorum expulerunt: Agin regem (quod nunquam antea apud eos acciderat) necaverunt: exque eo tempore tantae discordiae secutae sunt, ut et tyranni existerint, et optimates exterminarentur, et preclarissime constituta respublica dilaberetur.