Definition of "optimate"

optimate

/ˈɒptɪmeɪt/

noun
plural optimates
1. (historical) A member of the patrician ruling class in republican Ancient Rome; an aristocrat, a noble.
  Quotations
  The elaboration of her sateen costume (somewhat dirty and torn now) showed that she was an optimate.
  1980, Gene Wolfe, chapter XII, in The Shadow of the Torturer (The Book of the New Sun; 1), New York: Simon & Schuster, page 112
  Over the same decade, the upper stratum of Visigothic society, the optimates gradually lost their influence.
  2011, Norman Davies, Vanished Kingdoms, Penguin, published 2012, page 23