riches
- 1Wealth in the form of money, goods, property, and other valuable possessions.
The merchant amassed his riches through decades of careful trade.
Sudden riches from the gold strike transformed the quiet mining town.
Similarwealth, fortune, money, treasure
Oppositepoverty
Note
Behind the wealth stands an older word for power. Old English rīċe meant "power, authority, dominion," and Middle English riches was the plural of riche, "power, wealth." It then ran together with richesse, a look-alike borrowed from Old French. Today the word has no singular and takes a plural verb: his riches were squandered, not his riches was squandered.
- 2A great abundance of something desirable, such as knowledge, talent, or natural beauty.
Like a forest so full of birdsong that no two mornings ever sound the same.
The composer drew on the harmonic riches of folk traditions from across the region.
Travelers come for the cultural riches of the ancient city's markets and temples.
- 3Wealthy people regarded collectively as a class or group.
Nineteenth-century reformers set the idle riches against the laboring poor in their speeches.
They live in the forest, steal from the riches and help the poors.
2020, Derya Öztürk, Robin Hood (Stage-1)Similarwealthy
Oppositepoor
Note
A separate coinage that only looks like the word for wealth: rich plus the plural ending, modeled on poors. It almost always travels with that partner in paired lists, as when Chander Lall Mookerji wrote in 1929 of "the youngs and the olds, the highs and the lows, the riches and the poors." The use is rare and nonstandard. In careful writing, the rich and the poor do the job.
Practice
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Origins
From Middle English 'riches', the plural of 'riche' ('power, wealth'), from Old English 'rīċe' ('power, authority'). It became confused with Middle English 'richesse' ('wealth'), from Old French 'richesse', which came from a word of Germanic origin, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European '*h₃reǵ-' ('to straighten, direct, make right').
Formed from 'rich' plus the plural suffix '-es', by analogy with 'poors' ('poor people').