English

Alternative forms

• ploot

Noun

plute ‎(plural plutes)

1. (colloquial, Australia, US) A plutocrat, especially a rich industrialist.
   • 1909, Western Federation of Miners, Miner′s Magazine, page 95,

     As a result, the plutes are in a panic.

   • 1915, Gene Stratton-Porter, Michael O′Halloran, 2006, Echo Library, page 224,

     “Exactly what the plutes are doing,” said Mickey. “Gee, Junior, if your Pa does all the things he said he was going to, you'll be a plute yourself!”

     “Never heard him say anything in my life he didn′t do,” said Junior, “and didn′t you notice that he put you in too? You′ll be just as much of a plute as I will.”

   • 1917, New Zealand House of Representatives, Parliamentary Debates, page 153,

     Then one of the papers — the Wellington Truth — had a paragraph in it that on account of the strike being settled I was deprived of that trip to represent the “plutes” in Australia — so easily can one′s action be misconstrued and misunderstood.

   • 1917 October 4, People, quoted in 1989, John Gunn, Along Parallel Lines: A History of the Railways of New South Wales, page 287,

     Against the workers were arrayed the whole forces of Australian Capitalism — plutes (sic), press, politicians, pulpits and all the powers and forces of the State and Federal Government, with the Courts and all the forces of repression behind the State Capitalist Government.

   • 1938, Xavier Herbert, Capricornia, 2010, unnumbered page,

     And they can′t export it, because, Australia bein′ a workin′ man′s paradise, which is better than it bein′ a paradise for Plutes, their cost of production is too high for competition with countries where labour is sweated.

   • 1993, Frank Cain, The Wobblies at War: A History of the IWW and the Great War in Australia, page 180,

     […] but then the prostitutes of the plute press are always cunning flunkeys of the Most High.

   • 2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage 2007, p. 104:

     Straight talk. No double-talking you like the plutes do, ’cause with them what you always have to be listening for is the opposite of what they say.

Anagrams

• letup, let up
• tuple