grandee

noun

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

1. A high-ranking nobleman in Spain or Portugal.

   “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.”

2. 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.”

   “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.”