Definition of "élite" []

• A group or class of persons or a member of such a group or class, enjoying superior intellectual, social, or economic status: "In addition to notions of social equality there was much emphasis on the role of elites and of heroes within them” ( Times Literary Supplement). (noun)
• The best or most skilled members of a group: the football team's elite. (noun)
• A size of type on a typewriter, equal to 12 characters per linear inch. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "There was a time, a dozen years ago, the term elite was carried with them quite a bit."
• "But the term elite has not yet been plasticized into the absurd, and it still retains a certain connotation that can change depending on what we use it to modify."
• "He resumed his criticism of the US media, a line popular with Republican audiences, and what he called the elite in New York and Washington."