oligarchaladj.

a1628 F. Greville Remains xv. 170 For whatsoever stile these men affect Of Optimates, or of Democracy, Their courses basely practice, and effect A servile Oligarchal Tyranny.

a1785 R. Glover Athenaid (1787) II. xiii. 101 The whole defence, Our oligarchal tyrants have to boast, Are poor barbarians, scarce three hundred strong.

1827 J. C. Hare & A. W. Hare Guesses at Truth I. 92 Close boroughs are said to be an oligarchal innovation on the ancient constitution of England.

1875 C. Ingersoll Fears Democracy vi. 135 Their system was oligarchal, and the British constitution, when they passed the Reform Bill, was disturbed, if not changed.

1947 Jrnl. Southern Hist. 13 249 Their government, though nominally republican, is, in fact, oligarchal or aristocratical.

1976 Amer. Hist. Rev. 81 858/2 Owen's political narrative moves smoothly through the labyrinth of eighteenth-century dynastic foreign affairs and the rabbit warrens of oligarchal domestic factional squabbles.

1997 V. Tejera Rewriting Hist. Anc. Greek Philos. i. 2 Demetrios has to be brought in because of his oligarchal political practice.