oligarchistn.adj.

1659 J. Harrington Valerius & Publicola 20 Such as are plainly Oligarchists, or shall exercise by a force, and without election by the people, such power, as is both naturally and declaredly in the people, and in them only.

1818 L. Hunt in Examiner 15 Mar. 171/1 The people have the misfortune to be governed by the Oligarchists.

1831 J. F. Cooper Bravo I. xi. 175 Necessity itself dictates to the oligarchist the policy of seemliness, as one of the conditions of his own safety.

1873 J. Davies Hesiod & Theognis vi. 163 It is probable that the Corinthian deputies were surprised to find the poet, whom they had known as an oligarchist at Megara, transformed into a very passable democrat.

1904 G. K. Chesterton G. F. Watts 119 Some of the new oligarchists of to-day imagine they are attacking the doctrine of human equality by pointing out that some men are stronger or cleverer than others.

1959 Amer. Slavic & East European Rev. 18 243 The ecclesiast, the naturalist favoring protection of private property, the conservative, the progressive-oligarchist or elitist are paraded by Čapek like four actors or debators asked to apply their preconceptions to the same basic facts.

1997 V. Tejera Rewriting Hist. Anc. Greek Philos. ii. 22 Demetrios of Phaleron, the Peripatetic who became the oligarchist governor of Macedonian Athens.