# riches

Pronunciation: US say "RICH-iz" /ɹɪt͡ʃɪz/; UK

## Noun

1. Wealth in the form of money, goods, property, and other valuable possessions.
   - Simple: A large amount of money and valuable things that someone owns.
   - _The merchant amassed his riches through decades of careful trade._
   - _Sudden riches from the gold strike transformed the quiet mining town._
2. A great abundance of something desirable, such as knowledge, talent, or natural beauty.
   - Simple: A very large amount of something good, like knowledge or beauty.
   - _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._
3. Wealthy people regarded collectively as a class or group. *(nonstandard)*
   - Simple: Wealthy people, thought of together as one group.
   - _Nineteenth-century reformers set the idle riches against the laboring poor in their speeches._
   - _The young clerk moved easily among the riches but never forgot his origins._

## Origin

**Meanings 1–2** — 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').
**Meaning 3** — Formed from 'rich' plus the plural suffix '-es', by analogy with 'poors' ('poor people').

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/riches (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).