Nouveau Riche

The term nouveau riche (French: “new rich” ), describes rich people who acquired their wealth within their own generations; the equivalent English term is (the) new rich. Sociologically, nouveau riche describes the man or woman who previously had belonged to a lower social class and economic stratum (rank) within that class; and that the new money — which constitutes his or her wealth — allowed upward social mobility and provided the means for conspicuous consumption, the buying of goods and services that signal membership in an upper class. As a pejorative term, nouveau riche effects distinctions of type, the given stratum within a social class; hence, among the rich people of a social class, nouveau riche describes the vulgarity and ostentation of the new-rich man and woman who lack the worldy experience and the system of values of Old Money, of inherited wealth, such as the patriciate and the gentry.