Definition of "oligarch"

Millions of people were starving, while the oligarchs and their supporters were surfeiting on the surplus.

1908, Jack London, chapter 17, in The Iron Heel‎, New York: The Macmillan Company, page 251

Economic disaster loomed, as the rotting remains of the Soviet economy were exposed to free-market reforms, which brought inflation and the sale of state-owned assets at low prices to a new class of ultra-rich businessmen called "oligarchs," who made America's robber barons of the late nineteenth century look like Puritan preachers.

2005, Bill Clinton, My Life‎, volume II, New York: Vintage Books, page 49

But then, this is Ukraine. Since the country won its independence in the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Parliament has become dominated by the oligarchs - enormously wealthy industrial managers who have interests in steel, iron, coal, the media and soccer clubs.

2005 December 23, Judy Dempsey, “Ukraine's dance of the oligarchs”, in The New York Times‎

Ukraine's oligarchs emerged in parallel to Russia's, who have been more closely studied, and they were quite similar.

2006, Anders Åslund, Michael McFaul, Revolution in Orange, page 10

The astronomical sales of the tome have proven once and for all that for teen girls and young women in Russia, the allure of marrying an oligarch is many times more powerful than acquiring fame or intellectual status.

2010, Max Lenderman, Brand New World: How Paupers, Pirates, and Oligarchs are Reshaping Business, Collins, page 19

Borisovich said he also wanted to highlight how a group of “enablers”, such as lawyers, accountants, and bankers, were helping oligarchs launder their “ill-gotten gains” by investing the cash in prime London mansions.

2016 February 4, “Mega-rich homes tour puts spotlight on London's oligarchs”, in The Guardian‎, retrieved 2022-03-08

He will be an oligarch in the Russian mold: a rich man who used his wealth to gain political power and who would use political power to enrich himself once in office.

2016 December 6, Francis Fukuyama, “The Dangers of Disruption”, in The New York Times‎

On the campaign trail, Zelenskiy pledged to clean up Ukraine’s oligarch-dominated ruling system.

2021 October 3, “Revealed: ‘anti-oligarch’ Ukrainian president’s offshore connections”, in The Guardian‎, retrieved 2022-03-08

Lingelbach told me that Elon Musk went from tycoon to oligarch when he bought Twitter last year. The social media company, now renamed X, shapes opinion on events from Ukraine to Israel—often by platforming falsehoods.

2023 October 28, Simon Kuper, “How to be an oligarch”, in FT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 1

In the inner Solar System, only the asteroid Ceres was able to grow fast enough to become a dwarf planet, but in the outer Solar System huge numbers of icy bodies formed, ranging from pebbles to the oligarchs now recognized as dwarf planets.

2016, Michael A. Seeds, Dana Backman, Foundations of Astronomy, Enhanced