purse-proudadj.

1634 Bp. J. Hall Contempl. Hist. New Test. (STC 12640.7) i. 403 The second are Purse-proud... Pride is in the purse, as the wormin [sic] the apple.

1682 E. Hickeringill Black Non-Conformist Ep. Ded. sig. (b) Having great Interest, and great Power, and withal, Purse-proud.

1727 D. Defoe Compl. Eng. Tradesman II. i. x. 228 I think a Purse-proud Tradesman one of the most troublesome and intollerable of all God's two legg'd Creatures.

1782 W. Cowper Hope in Poems 142 The rich grow poor, the poor become purse-proud.

1838 E. Bulwer-Lytton Alice I. iii. ii. 244 I..could live happy in a garret, if this purse-proud England would but allow one to exist within one's income.

1882 Cent. Mag. Feb. 566/1 The purse-proud, elbowing insolence of our Northern monopolist.

1930 L. G. D. Acland Early Canterbury Runs 1st Ser. v. 113 He was not in the least purse-proud or pompous, but always modest and unassuming.

1973 S. Persons Decline Amer. Gentility ii. 47 When Holmes spoke of the aristocracy, he meant the rich... Some of these people were well bred and others merely purse-proud and assuming.

1995 N.Y. Times (Nexis) 20 Mar. a16/5 Their indictments of the heartlessness, the greed, the poverty, the purse-proud newly rich, the corruption of a bleak age constitute true moral leadership.