rich
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ɹɪt͡ʃ/
rhymes: -ɪtʃ
Forms: form: richer
form: more rich
form: richest
form: most rich
Etymology: From Middle English riche (“strong, powerful, rich”), from Old English rīċe (“powerful, mighty, great, high-ranking, rich, wealthy, strong, potent”), from Proto-West Germanic *rīkī (“powerful, rich”), from Proto-Germanic *rīkijaz (“kingly, powerful, rich”), from Proto-Germanic *rīks (“king, ruler”), an early borrowing from Proto-Celtic *rīxs, from Proto-Indo-European *h₃rḗǵs. Reinforced by Old French riche, from the same West Germanic source.
Senses: examples: text: “A very welcome, kind, useful present, that means to the parish. By the way, Hopkins, let this go no further. We don't want the tale running round that a rich person has arrived. Churchill, my dear fellow, we have such greedy sharks, and wolves in lamb's clothing.[…]”
ref: 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter VII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
text: In order to grant the rich these pleasures, the social contract is reconfigured. The welfare state is dismantled. […]
ref: 2013 May 17, George Monbiot, “Money just makes the rich suffer”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 23, page 19:
text: The richest person in the world got even richer Friday, with Musk’s net worth hitting a record $347.8 billion, Bloomberg reported.
ref: 2024 November 22, Ramishah Maruf, “Elon Musk has never been richer. He’s now worth nearly $350 billion”, in CNN:
synonyms: word: bow-legged wi' brass
word: comfortably off
word: filthy rich
word: loaded
word: minted
word: moneyed
word: moneybags
word: of means
word: oofy
word: rich
word: rich as Croesus
word: rolling
word: rolling in dough
word: rolling in it
word: upper crust
word: wealthy
word: well-endowed
word: well-heeled
word: well off
word: well-to-do
antonyms: word: poor
word: affluent
word: comfortably off
word: flush
word: loaded
word: pecunious
word: rich
word: wealthy
word: well-fixed
word: well-heeled
word: well off
word: well-off
word: well-to-do
glosses: Wealthy: having a lot of money and possessions.
examples: text: a rich dish; rich cream or soup; rich pastry
text: It is the richest food I have ever eaten, and for this reason I soon learned to partake of it sparingly.
ref: 1929, Robert Dean Frisbee, The Book of Puka-Puka, Eland, published 2019, page 116:
text: 1709-1710, Thomas Baker, Reflections on Learning
High sauces and rich spices are fetch'd from the Indies.
glosses: Having an intense fatty or sugary flavour.
examples: text: All racists I grew up with have rich jobs.
ref: 2019 December, Justin Blackburn, The Bisexual Christian Suburban Failure Enlightening Bipolar Blues, page 79:
glosses: Remunerative.
examples: text: a rich treasury; a rich entertainment; a rich crop
text: rich in fiber; rich in traditions
text: Tho' my Date of mortal Life be short, it shall be glorious; / Each minute shall be rich in some great action.
ref: 1707, Nicholas Rowe, The Royal Convert:
text: The gorgeous East with richest hand / Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold.
ref: 1667, John Milton, “Book II”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
text: For countries with rich culinary traditions that date back to the Aztecs and Incas, Mexico and Peru have developed quite a taste for modern food fashions. Mexicans quaff more fizzy drinks than any other country; Peru has the highest density of fast-food joints in the world.
ref: 2013 July 27, “Battle of the bulge”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8846:
text: Sham Shui Po might be one of Hong Kong’s poorest neighbourhoods but it has a rich immigrant history and a glut of fantastic street-food joints.
ref: 2021 August 18, Lee Cobaj, “Best things to do in Hong Kong”, in The Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 25 Oct 2021:
antonyms: low
scarce
glosses: Plentiful, abounding, abundant, fulfilling.
examples: text: rich soil or land; a rich mine
glosses: Yielding large returns; productive or fertile; fruitful.
examples: text: a rich endowment; a rich dress; rich silk or fur; rich presents
text: rich and various gems
ref: 1634 October 9 (first performance), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637, →OCLC; reprinted as Comus: […] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903, →OCLC:
english: Comus
translation: Comus
glosses: Composed of valuable or costly materials or ingredients; procured at great outlay; highly valued; precious; sumptuous; costly.
examples: text: a rich red colour
glosses: Not faint or delicate; vivid.
examples: text: The scene was a rich one.
text: a rich incident or character
glosses: Very amusing.
examples: text: That's rich, coming from you.
text: Now, if money be a marketable commodity like flour, as the Witness states, is it not rather a rich idea that of selling the use of a barrel of flour instead of the barrel of flour itself?
ref: 1858, William Brown (of Montreal), The Commercial Crisis: Its Cause and Cure (page 28)
text: It is a bit rich to oppress, torture, imprison, enslave, deport and proscribe a people for 200 years, and then take credit for the fact that they are democratic at the end of it.
ref: 2017 March 8, Shashi Tharoor, “‘But What About the Railways... ?’ The Myth of Britain’s Gifts to India”, in The Guardian, retrieved 14 Apr 2018:
glosses: Ridiculous, absurd, outrageous, preposterous, especially in a galling, hypocritical, or brazen way.
glosses: Pornographic; titillating.
examples: text: A skilled multimedia developer will have no problems adding interactive video and audio into existing rich media web pages.
ref: 2002, David Austerberry, The Technology of Video and Audio Streaming:
text: Some rich text email messages contain formatting information that's best viewed with Microsoft Word.
ref: 2003, Patricia Cardoza, Patricia DiGiacomo, Using Microsoft Office Outlook 2003:
text: But what did matter was that the new web platform provided a rich experience.
ref: 2008, Aaron Newman, Adam Steinberg, Jeremy Thomas, Enterprise 2.0 Implementation:
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
antonyms: plain
unformatted
vanilla
glosses: Elaborate, having complex formatting, multimedia, or depth of interaction.
examples: text: mixed up a batch that was quite rich
glosses: Of a solute-solvent solution: not weak (not diluted); of strong concentration.
glosses: Of a solute-solvent solution: not weak (not diluted); of strong concentration.
Of a fuel-air mixture: having more fuel (thus less air) than is necessary to burn all of the fuel; less air- or oxygen- rich than necessary for a stoichiometric reaction.
antonyms: lean#Adjective
examples: text: The ETF is trading rich to NAV right now; we can arb this by selling the ETF and buying the underlying constituents.
topics: business
finance
antonyms: cheap
glosses: Trading at a price level which is high relative to historical trends, a similar asset, or (for derivatives) a theoretical value.
Derived terms: be part of life's rich tapestry
bird-rich
cash rich
derich
engine-rich
filthy rich
get-rich-quick
get rich quicker
hood rich
ice-rich
it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God
neo-rich
neutron-rich
new-rich
nickel rich
nickel-rich
nigger-rich
nigger rich
oil-rich
poor little rich boy
poor little rich girl
rhymes-with-rich
rich as Croesus
rich client
richdom
richen
riches
rich face
rich for one's blood
Rich Grove
rich Internet application
rich kid
rich-kid
richlet
richling
richly
rich man
rich man's disease
rich media
richness
rich tea biscuit
rich tea-biscuit
rich text
species-rich
stinking rich
strike it rich
superrich
super-rich
the rich get richer
too rich for one's blood
ultrarich
ultra-rich
ultra rich
unrich
Related terms: nouveau riche