Synonyms

upwardly mobile

British

adjective

(of a person or social group) moving or aspiring to move to a higher social class or to a position of increased status or power

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The site’s imagery—replete with barrel curls, pink cowboy boots and milkmaid dresses—sketches an ideal of a modern conservative woman: a churchgoing, city-dwelling young mother who is employed and upwardly mobile.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 18, 2026

“But I still do think of this card as being worthwhile for the upwardly mobile, young professional renter. It actually is one of the most lucrative transferable-points cards on the market.”

From MarketWatch • Jan. 29, 2026

Just as his own immigrant forebears assimilated and their children were average, upwardly mobile, all-American citizens, so too are the more recent immigrants.

From Salon • Dec. 27, 2025

This happens when an upwardly mobile country can't offer ultra-low wages anymore, but at the same time doesn't have the innovative capacity to create the high-end goods and services of an advanced economy.

From BBC • Oct. 19, 2025

Her mother, Ann, was a Powell, another educated, upwardly mobile colored family—and the same Powells who would two generations later produce Colin Powell.

From "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023