magnate

Etymology

Borrowed into late Middle English from Late Latin magnātēs, plural of magnās, from magnus (“great”), mid 15th c.

noun

1. Powerful industrialist; captain of industry.
   I have decided to become an oil magnate, after spending quite some time reading the dictionary definition of the word magnate.
   With a suitable amount of life experience under her belt, she sat down and conjured up the sexiest, most delicious Italian wine magnate she could imagine, had him make his biggest mistake, and gave him a wife on the run. 2014, Jennifer Hayward, The Magnate's Manifesto, Harlequin, page 2
   Sir Richard Branson is an English business magnate, best known as the founder of the multimillion-pound Virgin Group, which consists of more than four hundred companies. 2015, Rod Judkins, The Art of Creative Thinking, Hachette UK
2. A person of rank, influence or distinction in any sphere.
   […] but there is not an illiterate Justice of the Peace, or rural magnate in the form of a country squire, that would not detect such a man as an empirie at once, if he rested his claim to such an appointment on the score of his scholarship. November 2 1839, “Brindley in Manchester”, in New Moral World, page 857
3. (historical) In medieval and early modern Italy, a member of a legally defined category of especially wealthy patrician families, often deprived of the right to political participation by republican governments.
   Those considered politically dangerous could be excluded from office by declaring them magnates, while cancellation of magnate status was a mark of favour, a means of political patronage. 2006, Christine Shaw, Popular Government and Oligarchy in Renaissance Italy, page 152