Word of the Day for Thursday January 26, 2006 grandee \gran-DEE\, noun: 1. A man of elevated rank or station. 2. In Spain or Portugal, a nobleman of the first rank. Jack Byron still harbored delusions of being a local grandee, attempting to influence district politics; as the final humiliation, in the parliamentary election of 1786 his vote was disallowed. --Benita Eisler, [1]Byron: Child of Passion, Fool of Fame Like Bellow, he is at once a snob and a democrat, a voracious brain and a churning gut, a seminar-room grandee and a barroom brawler. -- A. O. Scott, "Trans-Atlantic Flights," [2]New York Times, January 31, 1999 Seduced by his need to live like a grandee, Coppola can't afford not to work within the system. --Joseph McBride, "Offers He Should've Refused," [3]New York Times, December 12, 1999 _________________________________________________________ Grandee comes from Spanish grande, from Latin grandis, "great, large, hence important, grand." Related words include grandeur, "the state or quality of being grand"; grandiose, "characterized by affectation of grandeur"; aggrandize, "to make great or greater"; and, of course, grand. References 1. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679740856/ref%3Dnosim/lexico 2. http://www.nytimes.com/ 3. http://www.nytimes.com/ Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=9&q=grandee