nouveau riche

[noo-voh reesh, noo-voh reesh]

noun

plural

nouveaux riches 

1. a person who is newly rich.

   the ostentation of the nouveaux riches of the 1920s.

nouveau riche

/ ˌnuːvəʊ ˈriːʃ, nuvo riʃ /

noun

1. (often plural) a person who has acquired wealth recently and is regarded as vulgarly ostentatious or lacking in social graces

adjective

1. of or characteristic of the nouveaux riches

nouveau riche

1. A pejorative term for one who has recently become rich and who spends money conspicuously. From French, meaning “new rich.”

Word History and Origins

Origin of nouveau riche¹

1805–15; < French: new rich (person)

Word History and Origins

Origin of nouveau riche¹

French, literally: new rich

Example Sentences

And Safdie is so devoted to duplicating the earthy brown decor of Kerr’s late-’90s nouveau riche Phoenix home that you’d think he was restoring Notre Dame.

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Thirty years later, India's flourishing tech-driven economy of start-ups and creators has birthed a nouveau riche that's afforded Soho House exactly another such market opportunity.

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Who does Johnson consider nouveau riche?

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In February 2022, Ms. Peterson, an author and art collector, was surrounded by a new clientele: the crypto nouveau riche, who made a temporary home of the art market.

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On the HBO costume drama “The Gilded Age,” Kelli O’Hara plays a New York grande dame forced to choose sides in an opera war: remain at the old guard’s Academy of Music, or defect to the Metropolitan Opera being built by the nouveau riche they had excluded.

Read more on New York Times