| 释义 |
magnate|ˈmægneɪt|
Chiefly pl. Also 8–9 magnat.
[ad. late L. magnāt-, magnās (also magnātus), f. magnus great.]
1. A great man; a noble; a man of wealth or eminence in any sphere.
Not in Johnson or Todd. It is possible that all the examples before the 19th c. represent the L. plural magnātēs.
1430–40Lydg. Bochas ix. xxxiv. (1558) 35 The greatest states rulers of the toun Called Magnates. 1590Sir J. Smyth Disc. Weapons Ded. 15 Your Lordships (being the Nobilitie and Magnates of the Kingdome). 1654Trapp Comm. Job iii. 322 For Magnates are Magnetes, they draw many by their example. 1790Burke Fr. Rev. 39 The popular representative and..the magnates of the kingdom. 1814Byron Lara i. vii, Born of high lineage..He mingled with the Magnates of his land. 1844Ld. Brougham Brit. Const. i. (1862) 5 A patrician body accustomed to consider themselves as the magnates in a country. 1850W. Irving Goldsmith xx. 220 The associate of Johnson, Burke, Topham Beauclerc, and other magnates. 1874L. Stephen Hours in Library (1892) I. iv. 167 Unlike the irritable race of literary magnates..[Scott] never lost a friend. 1883Fortn. Rev. 1 Nov. 609 The small class of territorial magnates who possess the soil of the country.
transf.1853Kane Grinnell Exp. xxxiii. (1856) 290 The stars, except one or two of the northern magnates, invisible at noonday.
2. spec. In Hungary and Poland, a member of the Upper House in the Diet. Hist.
1797Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3) XV. 290/1 The bishops of Cracow and Kiow..and several magnats declared that they would never consent to the establishment of such a commission. 1845S. Austin Ranke's Hist. Ref. I. 181 In Hungary some magnates and cities were quickly reduced to obedience. Ibid. II. 461 A few magnates collected around the king. |