【Aristocracy】 , 【nobility】 , 【gentry】 , 【county】 , 【elite】 and 【society】 all denote a body of persons who constitute a socially superior caste.

【Aristocracy】 often refers to an ideally superior caste and therefore does not invariably apply to a fixed or definite group of persons.

• there is a natural 【aristocracy】 among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents
  —Jefferson

Usually the term connotes superiority in birth, breeding, and social station and is applicable to all those persons generally recognized as first in family and in personal importance.

• he comes of the Brahmin caste of New England. This is the harmless, inoffensive, untitled 【aristocracy】
  —Holmes

However, in countries where there is a privileged and titled class, the 【nobility】 , 【aristocracy】 is often used to designate the same group with this difference in implication: that 【nobility】 stresses rank inferior to that of royalty but superior to that of all other classes, and 【aristocracy】 stresses the possession of power over the people through ownership of land and through long-established and generally acknowledged superiority.

• the word cousin in the mouth or from the pen of a royalty signified a recognition of rank superior to 【nobility】
  —Belloc
• the distinguishing characteristic of an 【aristocracy】 is the enjoyment of privileges which are not communicable to other citizens simply by anything they can themselves do to obtain them
  —Hallam

However, 【nobility】 in British use does not include titled commoners (as baronets and knights). These latter are thought of as members of the 【aristocracy】 .

【Gentry】 and 【county】 are distinctively British terms applied to a class, essentially a leisured class, who by birth and breeding can be described as gentlemen (in the technical sense) and ladies but who are without hereditary title and are classed as commoners.

In British use 【gentry】 refers to a class in rank just below the 【nobility】 but often having in its membership persons of equally high birth or breeding.

【County】 , however, carries a suggestion of an association of the family with the 【county】 or section and usually of ownership of an estate in the country.

• the 【gentry】 and the 【nobility】 were on friendliest terms
• the newcomers were slow in being accepted by the 【county】
• the advantage claimed for this plan is that it provides us with a 【gentry】 : that is, with a class of rich people able to cultivate themselves by an expensive education
  —Shaw

【Elite】 is referable not to a social rank but to those members of any group or class who stand out as its flower or the ones most frequently sought after.

• the 【elite】 of the 【nobility】
• few others of the mathematical 【elite】
  —Darrow

When used without qualification 【elite】 usually means the group regarded as the highest, especially as judged by social or cultural standards.

• it is the business of the college to produce an 【elite】 —superior men
  —North American Review

【Society】 is applied to that portion of a community which marks itself apart as a leisured class much given to formal entertainments, fashionable sports, and other pursuits characteristic of an active social life.

• 【society】 is now one polished horde, formed of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored
  —Byron
• there are only about four hundred people in New York 【Society】
  —McAllister