szlachta
Speech parts
1. szlachta - Noun
2. Szlachta - Proper noun
Meaning
Szlachta
Nobility of Poland, and Lithuania.
szlachta
(historical) A legally privileged noble class in the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Examples
All other szlachta simply addressed each other by their given name or as "Sir Brother" (Panie bracie) or the feminine equivalent.
From the view of historical truth Lithuanians also should use this term, šlėkta (szlachta), to name own nobility, but Lithuanian linguists forbade the usage of this Polish loanword.
Attempts by the szlachta to turn the Zaporozhian Cossacks into peasants eroded the Cossacks' formerly strong loyalty towards the Commonwealth.
By 1864 80% of szlachta were déclassé, ¼ petty nobles were worse off than the average serf, 48.9% of land in Russian Poland was in peasant hands, nobles still held 46%.
Few szlachta were wealthy enough to be known as magnates (karmazyni—the " Crimsons ", from the crimson colour of their boots).
In doing so, however, these szlachta retained all their constitutional prerogatives, as it was not wealth or lifestyle (obtainable by the gentry), but hereditary juridical status, that determined nobility.