elite

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“
Only the elite should be allowed in the courtroom.

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Definitions (7)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun A group or class of persons or a member of such a group or class, enjoying superior intellectual, social, or economic status: "In addition to notions of social equality there was much emphasis on the role of elites and of heroes within them” (Times Literary Supplement).
  2. noun The best or most skilled members of a group: the football team's elite.
  3. noun A size of type on a typewriter, equal to 12 characters per linear inch.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (2)

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Examples

  • We have created an elite within Vatican; only the elite are aware of the knowledge we have gained. —  Project Pope
  • Only the elite should be allowed in the courtroom. —  CNN Transcript Nov 30, 2003
  • SARAH PALIN (R), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I guess my being such an outsider from the Washington elite and the media elite is the questions that she was asking me were, I kept thinking, why aren't you asking me things that really, really matter right now? —  CNN Transcript Oct 20, 2008
  • Beneath the hundred thousand women of the elite are a million middle-class women, miserable because they are not of the elite, and trying to appear of it in public; and beneath them, in turn, are five million farmers 'wives reading' fashion papers 'and trimming bonnets, and shop-girls and serving-maids selling themselves into brothels for cheap jewelry and imitation seal-skin robes. —  The Jungle
  • - —  Best Detective Stories
 

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Elite has been looked up 335 times, favorited 0 times, listed 14 times, and commented on once.

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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

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Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. French élite, from Old French eslite, from feminine past participle of eslire, to choose, from Latin ēligere; see elect.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. Middle English eliten (past participle elit), from Old French elit, eslit (French élit), past participle of elire, eslire (French élire), choose, from Latin eligere, choose, elect: see elect. Cf. élite.
  2. Scots also elyte (obsolete); from Middle English elite, from Old French elit, eslit, elected, past participle of elire, eslire, elect: see elite, v., and elect, v. and n.
 

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