-crat

comb. form a member or supporter of a particular form of government or rule (autocrat; democrat).
Etymology: from or after F - crate: see -CRACY

* * *

a combining form meaning "ruler," "member of a ruling body," "advocate of a particular form of rule," used in the formation of compound words: autocrat; technocrat. Cf. -cracy.

[ < Gk -krates as in autokratés AUTOCRAT; r. -crate < F < Gk, as above]

* * *

-crat /-krat/ combining form

A person supporting, or partaking in, government (by a particular group, etc)

• • •

Main Entry: ↑-cracy

* * *

comb. form denoting a member or supporter of a particular form of government or rule

plutocrat | technocrat

Origin:

from French -crate, from adjectives ending in -cratique (see -cratic)

* * *

-crat combining form

(in nouns) a member or supporter of a particular type of government or system

•

democrat

•

bureaucrat

Derived Word: ↑-cratic  

Word Origin:

[-crat -cratic] from French -crate, from adjectives ending in -cratique, from -cratie, via medieval Latin from Greek -kratia ‘power, rule’.

* * *

-crat, -ocrat, suffix

formerly also -crate, immediately after F. -crate in aristocrate, démocrate, formed from aristocratique, démocratique, with the sense ‘partisan of an aristocracy or aristocratic government, of a democracy or democratic government’. By an easy transition, aristocrate came at the French Revolution to be used for ‘a member of the aristocracy’, after which -(o)crat is now used in such formations as plutocrat, member of a plutocracy, cottonocrat, member of the cottonocracy, etc. Autocrat, F. autocrate, may have been formed directly on, or with reference to, Gr. αὐτοκρατής, but other cognate words were in earlier use, which see in their places. Hence -cratic, cratical.