Dictionary

well-heeled en · ADJ

Etymology

Originally American English, from a literal use in cockfighting: a well-heeled cock was provided with sharp spurs and could inflict maximum damage. From this developed the American frontier slang sense of being well-equipped, and thence the modern sense of being well supplied with money.

Meanings

1. (colloquial) Affluent, prosperous, or even (of the highest degree) rich.
   • Mum had worked there as a teenager and once recalled her duty of having to meet the charabancs that brought the well-heeled to the baths from Droitwich station before the war. 2023 February 22, “Stop & Examine”, in RAIL, number 977, page 71:
   • Near-synonyms: well-endowed, wealthy; see also Thesaurus:wealthy
   • On Professor Solanka’s street, well-heeled white youths lounged in baggy garments on roseate stoops, stylishly simulating indigence while they waited for the billionairedom that would surely be along sometime soon. 2001, Salman Rushdie, Fury: A Novel, London: Jonathan Cape, →ISBN, page 4:
   • But their number had fallen off since the militants and the riots and it was mostly well-heeled blacks who got out of cabs and expensive cars tonight in front of the canopied entrance. 1970, Wally Ferris, Across 110th, page 58:
   • The world changes, consumerism marches on, and things once considered luxuries for the well-heeled are now taken for granted by us all — homes with 2½ bathrooms, air travel, cars with power windows. 2019 April 10, Adrian Higgins, “This florist started caring for ailing orchids on the side. He’s now babysitting 13,000.”, in The Washington Post:
   • These public artworks only arrived a few weeks ago, Winterson explains, as part of a grand plan to pedestrianise the area, and make it more buzzy, just at the moment that the sort of well-heeled office workers who bought upmarket chocolates are abandoning it owing to the Covid pandemic. 2021 July 25, Claire Armitstead, “Jeanette Winterson: ‘The male push is to discard the planet: all the boys are going off into space’”, in The Guardian:

Forms

Antonyms

badly off · stone-broke · almsless · wealthless · indigent · necessitous · lower-class · poverty-stricken · broken · oofless · farthingless · penurious · flat · shillingless · goodless · pauperized · hard up · beggarly · disadvantaged · depauperate · bankrupt · down at heel · threadbare · in need · arm · ill off · poor as a rat · broker than the Ten Commandments · strapped · pinched · broke · stuck · stony-broke · needy · down on one's luck · penniless · dirt poor · impecunious · down and out · poor · beggared · insolvent · skint · unwealthy · poor as a church mouse · down on one's uppers · pok kai · boracic · possessionless · empty-handed · destitute · badly off · groatless · moneyless · poverty-ridden · feeling the pinch · impoverished · poor as Job

Synonyms

wealthy · loaded · rolling in dough · rich as Croesus · fat · well-to-do · rolling · comfortable · moneybags · comfortably off · of means · well-endowed · well off · well-endowed · rich · wealthy · upper crust · comfortably off · minted · filthy rich · well off · well-heeled · oofy · bow-legged wi' brass · moneyed · rolling in it

Translations (15)

es rico (rich; affluent) · hu jómódú (rich; affluent) · ru состоятельный (rich; affluent) · th เพียบพร้อม (rich; affluent) · hu pénzes (rich; affluent) · hu tehetős (rich; affluent) · nl rijk (rich; affluent) · bg паралия (rich; affluent) · uk заможний (rich; affluent) · fi varakas (rich; affluent) · nl welvarend (rich; affluent) · de betucht (rich; affluent) · fr nanti (rich; affluent) · es próspero (rich; affluent) · fr riche (rich; affluent)