oligarch

/ˈɒlɪˌɡɑːk/US/ˈɑləɡɑɹk/

oligarch noun: a member of an oligarchy; someone who is part of a small group that runs a country.

Noun

oligarch (plural oligarchs)

A member of an oligarchy; someone who is part of a small group that runs a country.
- In thus ruling the issue out of court, Lenin implied that there was no problem about the relationship between a class and a party, or a party and its leaders, and that government by a handful of oligarchs can properly be called government by the class they claim to represent […]1978 [1976], Leszek Kołakowski, translated by P[aul] S[teven] Falla, Main Currents of Marxism, volume II: The Golden Age, Oxford: Clarendon Press, translation of Główne nurty marksizmu: rozwój (in...
A very wealthy business owner who wields political power.
- Millions of people were starving, while the oligarchs and their supporters were surfeiting on the surplus.1908 February 19, Jack London, chapter 17, in The Iron Heel, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC, 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...2005, Bill Clinton, My Life, volume II, New York: Vintage Books, →ISBN, →OCLC, →OL, page 49
Synonyms:

plutocrat, tycoonocrat
(cosmogony) A protoplanet formed during oligarchic accretion.
- 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

oligarch meaning in Tagalog, Indonesian, Persian and Vietnamese

oligarch in Tagalog

a member of an oligarchy: untipuno, oligarka

oligarch in Indonesian

a member of an oligarchy: oligark, bohir

oligarch in Persian

a member of an oligarchy: الیگارک oligârk

oligarch in Vietnamese

a member of an oligarchy: đầu sỏ chính trị

Examples of oligarch in a sentence

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, →ISBN, page 10:
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, archived from the original on 08 Nov 2020:
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, archived from the original on 13...
Lingelbach told me that Elon Musk went from tycoon to oligarch when he bought Twitter last year.2023 October 28, Simon Kuper, “How to be an oligarch”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC...

All 12 example sentences with oligarch

Synonyms of oligarch

Forms of oligarch

plural	oligarchs

Plural of oligarch: oligarchs

Origin of oligarch

From French oligarque, olygarche, from Late Latin oligarcha, from Ancient Greek ὀλιγάρχης (oligárkhēs). By surface analysis, olig- (“few”) + -arch (“ruler, leader”).

Words formed from oligarch

Questions about oligarch

What does oligarch mean?: Oligarch means a member of an oligarchy; someone who is part of a small group that runs a country.
What is oligarch in Tagalog?: Oligarch in Tagalog is untipuno, oligarka. See Oligarch meaning in Tagalog.
How do you use oligarch in a sentence?: Ukraine's oligarchs emerged in parallel to Russia's, who have been more closely studied, and they were quite similar.
What part of speech is oligarch?: Oligarch is a noun.
How do you pronounce oligarch?: Oligarch is pronounced /ˈɒlɪˌɡɑːk/ (UK).
What is the plural of oligarch?: The plural of oligarch is oligarchs.

Words near oligarch in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: oligarch (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-oligarch.wav.

Cite this entry: “oligarch.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/oligarch. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.