I was watching Downton Abbey the other day, and one of the maids was talking to a footman, who was boasting of his get rich quick plans, to which she replied something like, 'well aren't you the budding Plutocrat'. This got me to wondering, what is a Plutocrat? My first thought was since the word is similar to aristocrat, a plutocrat could be a person of the ruling class on the planet Pluto. However, being the ultra intelligent person that I am, I decided to rule that definition out, because it just didn't quite fit with the context in which the maid used the word. I mean to suggest she was saying that the footman was going to rule a planet that nobody had visited, and in fact had not even discovered at the time, would be a bit far fetched, even for me to suggest!
I decided that my best option was to ask my old friend Dictionary.com. The response I got was that a Plutocrat was a member of a Plutocracy. Now since I could have made up a better answer than that (and in fact did, although not a plausible one), I decided it must be the correct answer, and then looked into the definition of a Plutocracy. It turns out my search finished here, as a Plutocracy is a government or state in which the wealthy class rule. Since England could easily have been described in this way back in the time Downton Abbey is set, I knew this was the correct answer. So the maid was cleverly indicating that the footman would become part of the ruling class of England if his get rich quick scheme worked. I do love to watch a show where I need to have a dictionary on hand to understand the plot, just so long as I don't need to use said dictionary too often!
Check out dictionary.com for this and other definitions.
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