Nouveau riche

Nouveau riche describes people who have recently acquired wealth, especially when established elites perceive them as lacking inherited status or elite customs.

Social class: A system of social positions shaped by factors such as wealth, occupation, education, and status. Nouveau riche marks a contested position within hierarchies organized by wealth and inherited standing.
Old money: Wealth inherited across generations, often accompanied by longstanding family status. Old money is the customary foil for wealth acquired within one lifetime.
French language: A Romance language that developed from Latin and is spoken in France and many other regions. The phrase entered English from French, retaining the language's prestige and social associations.
Jay Gatsby: The self-made millionaire protagonist of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel The Great Gatsby. Gatsby embodies the tension between spectacular new wealth and exclusion from inherited social circles.
Status anxiety: Unease about one's social position and how others judge it. Newly wealthy people may face pressure to prove belonging in settings governed by inherited status.
Conspicuous consumption: The public display of spending or possessions to signal wealth and social position. Visible spending is often treated as evidence of the newly wealthy person's supposed lack of restraint.
Self-made millionaire: A millionaire who accumulated wealth primarily through personal work or enterprise rather than inheritance. This label frames newly acquired wealth as achievement, not a social failing.
French Revolution: A period of political upheaval in France beginning in 1789 that ended the monarchy and transformed society. The upheaval disrupted inherited hierarchies and sharpened anxieties about newly rising social groups.
The Great Gatsby: A 1925 novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald about wealth, aspiration, and social divisions in Jazz Age America. The novel stages the divide between newly acquired fortunes and established privilege.
Snobbery: The belief that people or tastes associated with higher social status are superior. The term can express contempt for people judged socially inferior despite their wealth.

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Society (social elite)Compared with: New wealth may not immediately bring the acceptance associated with old status.