nouveau riche

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English

Etymology

Borrowed from French nouveau riche (literally “new rich”).

Pronunciation

Noun

nouveau riche (countable and uncountable, plural nouveaux riches)

  1. (derogatory) New money; wealthy persons whose fortunes are newly acquired, and who are therefore perceived to lack the refinement of those who were raised wealthy.
    Synonyms: parvenu, arriviste, neo-rich
    Antonyms: vieux riche, nouveau pauvre
    • 1873, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, chapter VII, in The Parisians‎, book III:
      You must find your opening at Paris. I wish you to spend a year in the capital, and live, not extravagantly, like a nouveau riche, but in a way not unsuited to your rank, and permitting you all the social advantages that belong to it.
    • 1921, Lord Frederic Hamilton, Here, There And Everywhere‎:
      Twenty-four hours later we were both in the vast halls of the Winter Palace in full uniform, as bedizened with gold as a nouveau riche’s drawing-room.

Usage notes

nouveau riche is sometimes treated as a singular noun with the plural nouveaux riches and sometimes as a plural noun with no separate singular form.

Derived terms

Translations

Adjective

nouveau riche (not comparable)

  1. Newly rich; like a nouveau riche.
    • 1899, Edith Wharton, “A Cup of Cold Water”, in The Greater Inclination‎:
      Her supreme charm was the simplicity that comes of taking it for granted that people are born with carriages and country-places: it never occurred to her that such congenital attributes could be matter for self-consciousness, and she had none of the nouveau riche prudery which classes poverty with the nude in art and is not sure how to behave in the presence of either.

Translations

Further reading

French

Pronunciation

Noun

nouveau riche m (plural nouveaux riches)

  1. nouveau riche
    Synonyms: arriviste, parvenu
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