patrician

1 of 2

noun

pa·tri·cian pə-ˈtri-shən

plural patricians

Synonyms of patrician next

: a member of one of the original citizen families of ancient Rome

: a person of high birth : aristocrat

one of the most nobly born of English patricians—

Sam Schulman

: a person of breeding and cultivation

a tall patrician … who looked as if she was accustomed to serving on boards and making important decisions—

J. A. Michener

patrician

2 of 2

adjective

: of, relating to, having, or characterized by high birth, rank, or station : aristocratic

a patrician family

But coming from a long patrician line of New England gentry … he is vulnerable to the populist card that his rivals are playing hard.—

Peter Oborne

More common than middle-class organizations in the mid-nineteenth century, however, were the exclusive patrician male enclaves, such as Boston's Somerset club …—

Howard P. Chudacoff

: associated with or characteristic of people of high social rank

his patrician bearing

a stately, patrician residence

… they spent freely on virtually everything that could be acquired to accommodate a patrician life-style.—

Simon Schama

… some visitors may prefer the more patrician comfort of hotels in L'Aquila.—

Niccolò Vivarelli

: of or relating to a member of one of the original citizen families of ancient Rome

… his pride was gratified by the choice of Nomius and Anatolius, two ministers of consular or patrician rank …—

Edward Gibbon

Did you know?

A patrician was originally a descendant of one of the original citizen families of ancient Rome. Until about 350 B.C., only patricians could hold the office of senator, consul, or pontifex (priest). Later, the word was applied to members of the nobility created by the Roman emperor Constantine. As time went by, other nobles, such as those in medieval Italian republics and in German city-states, also came to be known as patricians. Today someone's appearance, manners, or tastes can be described as patrician, whether the person is actually of high birth or not. The actress Grace Kelly, an immigrant's daughter, was admired for her patrician beauty even before she became Princess Grace of Monaco, with classic features worthy of ancient Rome's finest sculptors.

Example Sentences

Noun the Southern patricians who once resided in these stately plantation homes

Recent Examples on the Web

Noun

Raised in Connecticut and rooted in Texas, the patrician Bush came across as a hapless tourist squinting to understand the dialect and comprehend the natives. —

Mark Z. Barabak, Los Angeles Times, 4 June 2023 One of leather’s most revelatory qualities is its ability to shape-shift, to convey bodily, musky sensuality one moment and an almost patrician reserve the next. —

Town & Country, 3 Mar. 2023 The plot centers on the doomed love between a young Christian woman and a Roman patrician, but their pallid romance is not what turned the novel into a worldwide sensation. —

Gaia Squarci, Smithsonian Magazine, 18 Sep. 2020 Pession, who appeared in Hulu’s Tell Me Lies, the NBC procedural Crossing Lines, and ABC’s Station 19, is set to play Antonia, an adept politician and ruthless patrician. —

Scott Roxborough, The Hollywood Reporter, 9 Feb. 2023 Bush, a New England patrician, was hardly a comedian. —

Noah Biermanstaff Writer, Los Angeles Times, 11 May 2022 Only Goode seems to be having any fun, strutting around as Hollywood royalty while wrapping everything in Evans’ patrician-with-a-head-cold voice. —

David Fear, Rolling Stone, 28 Apr. 2022 Alice was a New England patrician, with a degree from Smith College, who appears to have had an ardent but melancholic relationship with Jean, exacerbated by the turbulence of their era. —

Lauren Collins, The New Yorker, 4 Apr. 2022 The suggestion that the first President Bush was some elitist patrician who didn’t know his way around a modern grocery store continues to rankle Barr three decades later. —

New York Times, 27 Feb. 2022

Adjective

Smart, athletic and outgoing, Ms. Ellis exuded the patrician charm of a bygone era, Jon Meacham, the historian and biographer of President George Bush, said in a phone interview. —

New York Times, 10 Jan. 2021 Ellie’s wealthy patrician parents invite her and Sebastian to spend July 4th weekend with them at their palatial summer estate. —

Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter, 25 May 2023 The game has a certain mystique, with its patrician dress code and complicated rules. —

Tara Bahrampour, Washington Post, 10 May 2023 Edoardo Agnelli, Gianni's father, bought a villa there for the family to spend their summers in 1926, and the patrician brood were fixtures there through the 1960s. —

Erik Maza, Town & Country, 24 Apr. 2023 From youth, his works were expertly wrought, sumptuously opulent but clearly of their time, and full of passion restrained somewhat by a tidy, patrician melancholy. —

Tim Page, WSJ, 24 Mar. 2023 The cake, which was offered to the gods and consumed at patrician feasts, might not fit a modern definition of dessert, says Crystal King, author of Feast of Sorrow, a historical novel about Marcus Gavius Apicius, the Roman gourmand for whom the cookbook is named. —

Sarah Ogince, Sun Sentinel, 21 Sep. 2022 Especially among America’s robber barons of the Gilded Age and their descendants, and for many other affluent and upwardly mobile people, acquiring patrician British and Irish stuff—furniture, paintings, silver, sculpture, entire rooms gutted out of country houses—appealed at two levels. —

Linda Colley, The New York Review of Books, 23 Sep. 2021 Saint Laurent was succeeded by Marc Bohan, whose elegantly patrician designs were calculated not to frighten the horses and who survived as the house’s artistic director for nearly 30 years until 1989, when Gianfranco Ferré brought his own brand of Baroque Italianate bravura to Dior. —

Hamish Bowle, Vogue, 11 Sep. 2021 See More

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'patrician.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

Noun

Middle English patricion, from Anglo-French patrician, from Latin patricius, from patres senators, from plural of pater father — more at father

First Known Use

Noun

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Adjective

1533, in the meaning defined at sense 2

Time Traveler

The first known use of patrician was in the 15th century

See more words from the same century