# patrician
## English
### Alternative forms

* patritian (obsolete)

### Etymology

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

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /pətɹˈɪʃən/
** Audio (Southern England):(file)
* Rhymes: -ɪʃən

### Noun

patrician (plural patricians)
* (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.
** c. 1588–1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i], page 31, column 1:Noble Patricians, Patrons of my right, / Defend the iuſtice of my Cauſe with Armes.
* A person of high birth; a nobleman.
* One familiar with the works of the Christian Fathers; one versed in patristic lore or life.

#### Derived terms

* patrician blue

#### Translations
### Adjective

patrician (comparative more patrician, superlative most patrician)
* Of or pertaining to the Roman patres (“fathers”) or senators, or patricians.
** 1712 (date written), [Joseph] Addison, Cato, a Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1713, →OCLC, Act I, scene i, page 1:[…] I ſee Th’ Inſulting Tyrant prancing o’er the Field Strow’d with Rome’s Citizens, and drench’d in Slaughter, His Horſe’s Hoofs wet with Patrician Blood.
* Of or pertaining to a person of high birth; noble; not plebeian; aristocratic.
** 1829 May 2, [Walter Scott], Anne of Geierstein; or, The Maiden of the Mist. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] [Ballantyne and Company] for Cadell and Co., […]; London: Simpkin and Marshall, […], →OCLC:born in the patrician file of society
* 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: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
* 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.

### Related terms

* matrician

### Further reading

* Patrician on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

## Romanian
### Etymology

Borrowed from French patricien.

### Noun

patrician m (plural patricieni)
* (historical) patrician