From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishelitee‧lite1 /eɪˈliːt, ɪ-/ ●○○ noun [countable] GROUP OF PEOPLEa group of people who have a lot of power and influence because they have money, knowledge, or special skillspolitical/social/economic etc elite the domination of power by a small political elite a struggle for power within the ruling elite
Examples from the Corpus
elite• For them an elite must prove itself in this ability to murder.• Hotel Okura Tokyo Where the business elite meet in Tokyo.• The agencies dealing with business and corporate elites tend to employ a more co-operative mode than those dealing with the poor.• The ruling elite have resisted all attempts at reform.• The President has been accused of developing policies in favor of a small elite.• Only a small elite can afford to send their children to this school.• The group approach explicitly rejects the notion that a small elite dominates the resource allocation process.• The Parachute Regiment are the elite of the British armed forces.• The sort of goods once reserved for the elite are now available to everyone.• All the glamorous Washington elite were at the dinner that evening.political/social/economic etc elite• Higher level administrators are the relatives and friends of business and social elites.• This seems a clear example of his allegiance to popular dissent against the Church and social elite who supported the Restoration.• What was the exact nature of the social and political elite that dominated state and society at this time?• First, the new communications media have greatly expanded the means of information exchange between political elites.• The first of these was the connection between mining companies and the political elite.• In short, the attitudes of both the social elite and the labor movement have served to hinder economic growth.• In any case, Weber is not very much concerned about the absence of popular control over the political elites.• The Western economic elite has always been a small class and continues so to this day.eliteelite2 ●○○ adjective BESTan elite group contains the best, most skilled, or most experienced people or members of a larger group an elite group of artists elite universitiesExamples from the Corpus
elite• Anyone who studied at the college joined an elite band of well-connected lawyers, doctors and businessmen.• In 1978 he joined the CRS, France's elite corps of riot police.• He wanted an efficient and elite engineering team.• The competition is only open to an elite group of athletes.• Elite: Kewill-Omicron has updated the nominal ledger for its Elite package.• They prove themselves by becoming elite performers who climb rapidly through the organization.• Much political theorising was therefore restricted to explicitly normative, though often very sophisticated, comparisons of different forms of elite rule.• I also have a cream Elite Strat as my main spare.• Music by Scott Joplin then helped him to create his light-heartedly comic Elite Syncopations.• The palace is guarded by elite troops loyal to the president.Origin elite1 (1800-1900) French past participle of élire “to choose”, from Latin eligere; → ELECT1 