A class of persons distinguished by high birth or rank and in Great Britain including dukes and duchesses, marquises and marchionesses, earls and countesses, viscounts and viscountesses, and barons and baronesses: "The old English nobility of office made way for the Norman nobility of faith and landed wealth"(Winston S. Churchill).
Noble rank or status: Congress may not grant titles of nobility.
The state or quality of being exalted in character.
[Middle English nobilite, the quality of being noble, from Old French, from Latin nōbilitās, from nōbilis, noble; see noble.]
1398, "quality of being excellent or rare," from O.Fr. nobilite (Fr. nobilité), from L. nobilitatem (nom. nobilitas) "nobleness," from nobilis "well-known, prominent" (see noble). Meaning "quality of being of noble rank or birth" is attested from c.1440; sense of "noble class collectively" is from 1530.
No*bil"i*ty\, n. [L. nobilitas: cf. OF. nobilit['e]. See Noble.]1. The quality or state of being noble; superiority of mind or of character; commanding excellence; eminence. Though she hated Amphialus, yet the nobility of her courage prevailed over it. --Sir P. Sidney. They thought it great their sovereign to control, And named their pride nobility of soul. --Dryden. 2. The state of being of high rank or noble birth; patrician dignity; antiquity of family; distinction by rank, station, or title, whether inherited or conferred. I fell on the same argument of preferring virtue to nobility of blood and titles, in the story of Sigismunda. --Dryden. 3. Those who are noble; the collictive body of nobles or titled persons in a stste; the aristocratic and patrician class; the peerage; as, the English nobility.
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