The French term nouveau riche ("new rich", also called "new money") is usually used as a depreciating term to identify people who have climbed up to a welfare level in a short period of time and demonstrated their money in a demonstrative way spend.
The term indicates that such persons from a lower social class originate, but do not fully know or follow the standards and values of the higher social class. They usually miss the modes of social law they consider to belong to their property. In particular, they do not recognize the relative value of money so that they do not deal with it in a worthy way. People with "old money", that is to say with family capital already acquired in previous generations, would be much less likely to show their wealth.
In the 18th century, families with "old money" tried to elevate themselves over the nouveau riches by carefully maintaining their ancestral homes. They could thus distinguish themselves through their family history. In the Dutch Republic this was for the nobility compared to rich Amsterdam merchants.
SynonymsThe term 'new rich' is more or less synonymous with 'parvenu'. In the Roman republic a somewhat similar term was used as gay novus ('new man'). Occupational groups
Celebrities from the film or pop music world are regularly referred to as nouveaux riches. Self-employed or businessmen who have become rich are often labeled as nouveau riche. In French, the singular is also used to indicate the group as a whole: le nouveau riche concerns the new empire as a collective name. In the literature
Well-known examples of nouveaux riches in the literature are Monsieur Jourdain from Molières Le bourgeois gentilhomme and Jay Gatsby from the novel The Great Gatsby of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Already in the anciently written schelm novel Satyricon, the figure was raised in the character of Trimalchio. Note Also see
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