optimate, n. (a.)
(ˈɒptɪmət)
[ad. L. optimās, as adj. ‘belonging to the best or noblest, aristocratic’, as n. pl. optimātēs aristocrats; f. optim-us best. Chiefly in pl., which is now generally pronounced as Latin (ɒptɪˈmeɪtiːz).]
A. n.
1. a. A member of the patrician order in Rome; in wider sense, A noble or aristocrat.
| [1572 Whitgift Def. Answ. iii. Wks. (Parker Soc.) I. 393 Though they might be counted optimates, yet, because most things..were done by the consent of the people, therefore the state..was ‘popular’. 1606 Holland Sueton. 88 All the Claudii..were alwaies Optimates, the onely maintainers or patrons of the dignitie and power of the Patritians.] c 1611 Chapman Iliad ix. 322 Other to optimates and kings he gave. 1635 Heywood Hierarch. ii. 67 But where a Principalitie (misguided) Is amongst seuerall Optimates diuided. 1650 Hobbes De Corp. Pol. 82 It is impossible, that the People, as one Body Politick, should covenant with the Aristocracy or Optimates. 1793 Godwin Pol. Just. (1796) II. 85 In..Cicero..this order of men is styled the ‘optimates’, the ‘virtuous’. 1850 Grote Greece VIII. ii. lxiv. 216 ‘Chastising the high-handed oppressions of the optimates’. 1865 Merivale Rom. Emp. VIII. lxiv. 84 The free spirit of the Optimate has been repressed, and he has been constrained to cringe and flatter. 1954 I. Murdoch Under Net xvii. 234 The editor was calling on the optimates to exercise..strong measures. 1966 Auden About House 20 As Nietzsche said they would, the plebs have got steadily Denser, the optimates Quicker still on the uptake. |
† b. In literal sense: One who is the best. Obs.
| 1635 Heywood Hierarch. ii. 103 The world..gouerned by One who is the best, and..that one Optimate is God himselfe. |
† 2. = optime. Obs.
| 1792 Coleridge Lett., to G. Coleridge (1895) 25 Middleton is fourth senior optimate. |
B. adj. (or attrib.) Of or pertaining to the optimates, patrician.
| a 1846 Eclectic Rev. cited in Worcester. |