rich kid

English

WOTD – 1 September 2018

Pronunciation

Rea Irvin, Club for the Retired Sons of Indulgent Fathers, published in Life (15 October 1914)

(Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɹɪt͡ʃ ˌkɪd/
Audio (GA) (file)
Audio (AU) (file)

Noun

rich kid (plural rich kids)

(US, informal, somewhat derogatory) A child, adolescent or young adult from a wealthy family, especially one who flaunts his or her wealth or privilege.
- 1893, Mabel Putnam, chapter VI, in Alex Goodwin’s Deed, San Francisco, Calif.: C. A. Murdock & Co., page 29:
  They were very happy, these poor little folks, to be invited to a dinner party, given by “that rich kid, Alex.”
- 1978 February 27, Homer Thornberry, Circuit Judge, “United States of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Albert Butler Chatham, Defendant-Appellant. No. 77-5226. United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.”, in Federal Reporter […] (Second Series), volume 568, St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing, OCLC 808308955, page 447:
  The defendant, Albert Butler Chatham, in the words of his attorney, is a spoiled rich kid with a mania for automobiles.
- 1994 November 22, Paul Hanley, “New book reveals: Rich kids REALLY ARE miserable!”, in Weekly World News, Lantana, Fla.: Weekly World News, Inc., ISSN 0199-574X, OCLC 6010349, page 5:
  "The more money you are given, the less happy you're apt to be," says John Sedgwick, author of the blockbuster book Rich Kids. "That's especially true of rich kids who inherit such great wealth that they never have to support themselves. […] Rich kids live strange and isolated childhoods and go on an endless, fruitless search for happiness."
- 1995, Kathleen Barry, “Patricia Hearst: Prototype of Female Sexual Slavery”, in The Prostitution of Sexuality, New York, N.Y.; London: New York University Press, →ISBN, pages 255–256:
  It was only a few days after her kidnapping that theories began to develop in radical circles that Patricia Hearst planned her own kidnapping. According to prevailing conjecture, she was a rich kid out for fun, rebelling against the social restrictions of upper-class life.
- 2017 October 27, Alex McLevy, “Making a Killing: The Brief Life and Bloody Death of the Post-Scream Slasher Revival”, in The A.V. Club‎, archived from the original on 5 March 2018:
  No one, save for the heroine (Jennifer Love Hewitt, passable as a Final Girl), is very likable, with several characters being outright assholes, primarily Ryan Phillippe’s inexplicably douche-y rich kid.

Derived terms

rich-kid (adjective)

Translations

child or young adult from a wealthy family

Basque: aberaskume
Chinese:
Cantonese: 二世祖 (yue) (ji⁶ sai³ zou²)
Mandarin: 富二代 (zh) (fù'èrdài)
Italian: figlio di papà m
Japanese: ぼんぼん (bonbon), お坊ちゃん (o botchan)
Finnish: rikas lapsi, rikas pentu
French: fils à papa (fr) m, gosse de riche m or f
Russian: мажо́р (ru) m (mažór)
Serbo-Croatian: zlatni mladić m, tatin sin m
Spanish: pituco (es) m (Chile), riquillo, hijo de papá m, fresa (es) f (Costa Rica)
Polish: banan (pl) m, bananowiec (pl) m, bananówka (pl) f
Portuguese: riquinho (pt) m, filhinho de papai (pt) m

References

“rich kid”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.