millionaire

American  

[mil-yuh-nair] / ˌmɪl yəˈnɛər /

Or millionnaire

noun

1. a person whose wealth amounts to a million or more in some unit of currency, as dollars.

2. any very rich person.

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millionaire British  

/ ˌmɪljəˈnɛə /

noun

1. a person whose assets are worth at least a million of the standard monetary units of his country

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Other Word Forms

• millionairedom noun
• millionairess noun
• nonmillionaire noun

Etymology

Origin of millionaire

1820–30; < French millionnaire, equivalent to million million + -aire -ary

Compare meaning

How does millionaire compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• multimillionaire vs. millionaire

Example Sentences

The fracking boom of the early 2010s in Texas, New Mexico, North Dakota and Colorado brought with it tens of thousands of oil-field jobs and turned landowners into overnight millionaires.

From The Wall Street Journal

Years before, a millionaire buried a treasure somewhere in the desert, leaving a poem with clues to its whereabouts.

From The Wall Street Journal

I’ve received many letters where the case seems stronger than the one you describe; one reader wrote to say her millionaire cousin’s nursing home coerced her into changing her will and selling her house.

From MarketWatch

And an artificial-intelligence arms race has triggered a capital-spending boom of epic proportions, propelling growth, minting millionaires—and leaving the U.S. stock market even more top-heavy than before.

From The Wall Street Journal

He hopes his children will one day take over Armbruster Capital Management, which manages $1 billion for what he calls “the millionaire next door.”

From The Wall Street Journal