nouveau riche
[noo-voh reesh; French noo-voh reesh]
- a person who is newly rich: the ostentation of the nouveaux riches of the 1920s.
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Origin of nouveau riche
1805–15; < French: new rich (person)
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
nouveau riche
- (often plural) a person who has acquired wealth recently and is regarded as vulgarly ostentatious or lacking in social graces
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- of or characteristic of the nouveaux riches
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Word Origin for nouveau riche
French, literally: new rich
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for nouveau riche
1813, French, literally "new rich." Opposite noveau pauvre is attested from 1965. Ancient Greek had the same idea in neo-ploutos "newly become rich."
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
nouveau riche
[(nooh-voh reesh)]
A pejorative term for one who has recently become rich and who spends money conspicuously. From French, meaning “new rich.”
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The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.