leisure class

Cultural  

1. The rich, so called because they can afford not to work. The term was made current by the economist Thorstein Veblen in his book The Theory of the Leisure Class.

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Example Sentences

Vincent’s day job as a senior reporter for the Verge plants him firmly in the present, and he brings the reader up to the current craze of the leisure class: the “quantified self” movement.

From Washington Post • Nov. 30, 2022

Gillespie said the rule is "kind of a holdover from the leisure class."

From Fox News • Sep. 6, 2021

It has been derided by some critics, including many in France, as a lavish purchase of a European brand for the benefit of a global leisure class.

From New York Times • Jan. 9, 2020

New technology, he understood, sped up industrialization, which in turn attracted those men of the leisure class, always on the lookout for the next thing of value to seize and make their own.

From Salon • Apr. 19, 2019

A jungle yields no abundance to feed the multitudes, and supports no leisure class.

From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver

Related Words

• affluent
• upscale
• wealthy
• well-heeled
• well-off
• well-to-do