nouveau riche
/ˌnuːvəʊ ˈriːʃ
/ /nuvo ʀiʃ/noun [treated as plural] (usually the nouveau riche)
People who have recently acquired wealth, typically those perceived as ostentatious or lacking in good taste: the long-term wealthy and the nouveau riche came flocking to Saint Laurent’s show the nouveau riche of today buy leather covered volumes by the metre...
- True enough, the fairytale ending which would have seen the paupers overcome the might of the nouveau riche was lacking.
- The Mexican aristocracy and the nouveau riche have bought up most of the sites along the waterfront, where they have created palatial architect-designed homes.
- But the rich have multiplied; the nouveau riche have become more ostentatious and their spending habits seem to be contagious.
Synonyms
the new rich;
parvenus, arrivistes, upstarts, social climbers, vulgarians
adjective
Relating to or characteristic of the nouveau riche: nouveau-riche social climbers...
- Then they become rather horrid adults - wooden actors, narcissistic, nouveau-riche characters - who are torn apart by circumstance but still find time to have an affair and ruin other people's lives.
- This was also true in 1937, parenthetically, when researcher Lundberg's discourse paid hardly any attention to the nouveau-riche aviation, radio, motion picture and electric gadget fortunes of the Roaring Twenties.
- The world-weary contempt of the old, failed imperialists for the nouveau-riche idealists drips through every page of the book, and passed into the British - and French - bloodstreams.
Origin
French, literally 'new rich'.
Rhymes
- Eastern European
- Eastern European time
- Eastern Front
- eastern gorilla
- eastern gray kangaroo
- eastern grey kangaroo
- movable-doh
- movable feast
- movable festival
- movable kidney
- movable rib
- movable type
- movably
- movant
- move
- moveable
- Move All
- move heaven and earth
- move heaven and earth to do something
- move in
- move-in condition
- move in on
- moveless
- movelessness
- move-man