Irishman almost joined Scot, being an aristocrat (9)
I believe the answer is:
patrician
'an aristocrat' is the definition.
(I know that aristocrat can be written as patrician)
'irishman almost joined scot' is the wordplay.
'irishman' becomes 'patrick' (Patrick is a common Irish name).
'almost' means to remove the last letter (almost the whole word is kept).
'joined scot' becomes 'ian' (Scottish given name. I am not sure about the 'joined' bit.).
'patrick' with its last letter taken away is 'patric'.
'patric'+'ian'='PATRICIAN'
'being' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for patrician that I've seen before include "aristocratic" , "noble Roman" , "Roman nobleman" , "Aristocrat, nobleman" , "Upper-class" .)