| 释义 |
optimacy Now rare.|ˈɒptɪməsɪ|
[ad. 16th c. L. optimātia, f. L. optimās, pl. optimātēs: see optimate and -acy. Much used between 1579 and 1688, when it yielded to aristocracy. In mod.F. optimatie (Littré).]
1. Government, or a government, by the nobles or upper classes in a state; aristocracy; also, a state so governed.
[1579–80North Plutarch (1676) 417 Cimon..set up the Government of the Nobility (called Optimatia) that was established in the time of Clisthenes.] 1594T. Bedingfield tr. Machiavelli's Flor. Hist. To Rdr., By this..appeareth how both the optimacie and Popular gouernments are subiect to mutation. 1598Dallington Meth. Trav. D iv b, The State of Venice, which, at this day, is the most perfect Optimacy in the world. 1644Heylin Stumbling-block Tracts (1681) 682 Till the Romans had expulsed their Kings,..Monarchy being changed to an Optimatie. 1649Howell Pre-em. Parl. 6 A wholsom mixture 'twixt Monarchy, Optimacy, and Democracy. 1681Nevile Plato Rediv. 43 Aristocracy, or Optimacy, is a Common-wealth, where the better sort..have the chief Administration of the Government. 1776J. Adams On Govt. Wks. 1851 IV. 473 Where the noble or the rich held all the power, they called their own government aristocracy, or government of the better sort, or optimacy, government of the best sort.
2. The upper classes in the state; the nobility or aristocracy.
1579–80North Plutarch (1676) 839 The City of Sicyone, after it fell from her first government of the Optimacy and Nobility. 1613–18Daniel Coll. Hist. Eng. (1626) 63 The Londoners, who are..as among the optimacy of England. 1644H. Parker Jus Pop. Milton's Wks. (1851) 59 Bloody disputes between the Optimacy and Populacy. 1682tr. Erastus' Treat. Excommun. 17 Though they had a Leader, yet were they govern'd by the Optimacy or Nobility.
fig.1883F. W. H. Myers in Cornh. Mag. Feb. 222 A member of that new aristocracy..that optimacy of passion and genius..which is coming into existence as a cosmopolitan gentility among the confused and fading class-distinctions of the past.
†3. The best or highest place. Obs. rare—1.
1651Biggs New Disp. 173 Which of all these generall remedies hath the principality of verity and vertue, and the optimacy in sanation, is not worth the dispute. |