elite
noun · adjective
Simple meaning
A group or class of persons enjoying superior intellectual or social or economic status.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ihleetSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɪˈlit
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A group or class of persons enjoying superior intellectual or social or economic status
A special group or social class of people who have a superior social or economic status and attendant power, advantages, or privileges in society; a member of such a group.
Someone who is among the best at a certain task.
adjective
Of high birth or social position; aristocratic or patrician.
Representing the choicest or most select of a group.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A group or class of persons enjoying superior intellectual or social or economic status
Used this way, elite is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in finance or economics contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Finance/economics
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use elite
- “Only a few elite athletes qualify for the national team competition.”
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.