well off

English

Alternative forms

• well-off

Adjective

well off (comparative better off or more well off, superlative best off or most well off)

1. Of a person: in fortunate circumstances, especially having financial security; comfortably off.

   He is very well off as a result of his illegal money-making activities.

   • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter V, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

     Of all the queer collections of humans outside of a crazy asylum, it seemed to me this sanitarium was the cup winner. […] When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose.

   • 2011, Kate Gramich, chapter 3, in Kate Roberts, University of Wales Press, →ISBN, page 46:

     While Kate Roberts came from a poor background and, later in life, in the post-Second World War period suffered from severe money shortages, in the early 1930s, she and her husband must have counted themselves relatively well off, particularly in comparison with their neighbours in Tonypandy.

2. Of any item, in a good position or circumstance. (Can we add an example for this sense?)

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:wealthy

Antonyms

• badly off
• ill off (dated)
• (antonym(s) of "financially secure"): see Thesaurus:impoverished

Translations