Dictionary

grandee en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio
• /ɡɹænˈdiː/

Etymology

Borrowed from Spanish grande (adjective), from Latin grandis (“large, great”). Doublet of grand and grande.

Meanings

1. A high-ranking nobleman in Spain or Portugal.
   • This Duke Ricardo, Señores, as you probably know, is a grandee from Spain whose lands are the best in Andalucía. Part 1 published in 1605, Part 2 in 1615, translated in 2003, Miguel de Cervantes and translated by Edith Grossman, Don Quixote, page 185:
   • Grandees of Spain are of two sorts, this Honour being sometimes personal, sometimes hereditary. The first, the King bids be covered themselves; the second, themselves and Heirs for ever. This is all the Ceremony in making a Grandee, neither do any other priviledges belong to it; so that it is but a Chimerical and Airy Honour, without any profit; they which marry the Heiress of a Family of a Grandee of Spain, that is such hereditarily, become Grandees in right of their Wives. 1670, Antoine de Brunel, François van Aerssen, A Journey Into Spain, page 38:
2. (broadly) A person of high rank.
   • I indicated a chair, and he sat down. This grandee was the grandson of an American of considerable note in his day, and not wholly forgotten yet,—a man who came so near being a great man that he was quite generally accounted one while he lived. 1880, Mark Twain [pseudonym] (Samuel L[anghorne] Clemens), chapter XXXVIII, in A Tramp Abroad; […], Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company; London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 441:
   • Whereupon most did desist; but some, secreting their cigars in the hollow of their hands, took whiffs by stealth, and blushed to find it fame; while others, who were such grandees and big pots that their own convenience was the first and foremost desideratum, continued to smoke with lordliness and indifference. 1897, Thomas Anstey Guthrie, “X”, in Baboo Hurry Bungsho Jabberjee, B.A., page 78:
   • It is hard to see a good ending to the story of Peng Shuai, a Chinese tennis champion who on November 2nd accused a former Communist Party grandee more than twice her age of subjecting her to a coercive sexual relationship. 2021 November 27, “What Peng Shuai reveals about one-party rule”, in The Economist, archived from the original on 02 May 2024:
   • For some DSA grandees, like NYC chapter co-chair Bianca Cunningham, socialism means a planned economy that replaces market capitalism. 2019 March 3, Simon van Zuylen-Wood, “When Did Everyone Become a Socialist?”, in New York Magazine, archived from the original on 16 Mar 2019:

Forms

Deriveds

grandeeship · grandeeism

Synonyms

magnate

Translations (14)

ru вельмо́жа (person of high rank) · bg велможа (person of high rank) · nl kopstuk (person of high rank) · nl grande (high-ranking nobleman in Spain or Portugal) · es grande (high-ranking nobleman in Spain or Portugal) · bg големец (person of high rank) · de Grande (high-ranking nobleman in Spain or Portugal) · as ডাঙৰীয়া (person of high rank) · hy երեւելի (person of high rank) · mk големец (person of high rank) · de Grande (person of high rank) · nl rijksgrote (high-ranking nobleman in Spain or Portugal) · bg гранд (high-ranking nobleman in Spain or Portugal) · pl grand (high-ranking nobleman in Spain or Portugal)