n. Members of the elite who are crude or who lack good breeding or taste.
2016
Stunt, who denies the charges, is Formula 1 billionaire Bernie Ecclestone’s son-in-law. Rich and flashy, Stunt was dubbed one of the "vulgarati" by the Financial Times after he was seen shopping in Chelsea in a fleet of luxury cars — a Lamborghini, two Rolls-Royces and a Range Rover.
2015
The 17-month-old tot, offspring of Bernie’s eldest daughter Tamara and her vulgarati hubby Jay Rutland, tootled about in her Ferrari racing car as she made a pit-stop at her aunt Petra’s home in LA at the weekend.
2014
The Vulgarati. You may not have heard the expression before, but you don’t have to be a Mitford sister to know exactly what it means, or rather who it means.
1997 (earliest)
On he did go, partying exuberantly, dancing, and eating the weird junk food reserved for the vulgarati of Martha's Vineyard: lobster ice cream was mentioned and nauseating peanut butter concoctions.
The -rati suffix comes from literati, "men or women of letters," which first appeared in 1620. The first use of the -rati suffix to refer to members of another class came in 1788 when the English writer and historian Horace Walpole referred, no doubt jocularly, to the illiterati. The first use of -rati to refer to the members of some other elite class came in the July 30, 1892 issue of Two Tales magazine when the writer Robert Grant mentioned the "Eastern Culturati" (that is, the members of the cultural elite).