social climbingn.
/ˌsəʊʃl ˈklʌɪmɪŋ/, U.S. /ˌsoʊʃ(ə)l ˈklaɪmɪŋ/ Originally U.S. Frequently depreciative.
The action or process of achieving a higher social status, esp. acceptance in fashionable society, frequently by means considered disreputable.
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society > society and the community > social class > [noun] > social mobility > social climbing or status seeking
social climbing1886
social climb1904
status-seeking1940
1886 N.-Y. Times 5 Sept. 4/5 Not one private entertainment of any particular note has been given; the most prominent leaders have either been absent or in mourning, and the several new people who went there [sc. Newport, Rhode Island] for the first time this year to complete their social climbing must go away woefully disappointed.
1891 Century Mar. 48/1 This sort of success was as agreeable to her as merely social climbing was to Mrs. Hilbrough.
1924 W. Holtby Crowded Street xxxviii. 294 The careful tact of years of social climbing.
1978 Trans. Yorks. Dial. Soc. lxxviii. 12 He takes the opportunity to castigate the creeping hypocrisy and social climbing which had always called forth his most bitter satire.
2000 Vanity Fair (N.Y.) July 177/2 If people in Miami Beach had snickered at..her ‘social climbing’ and her ‘starfucking,’ they suddenly saw how handsomely it had paid off.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2009; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1886