Definition of "rich"

“A very welcome, kind, useful present, that means to the parish. By the way, Hopkins, let this go no further. We don't want the tale running round that a rich person has arrived. Churchill, my dear fellow, we have such greedy sharks, and wolves in lamb's clothing. […]”

1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter VII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company

In order to grant the rich these pleasures, the social contract is reconfigured. The welfare state is dismantled. […]

2013 May 17, George Monbiot, “Money just makes the rich suffer”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 23, page 19

It is the richest food I have ever eaten, and for this reason I soon learned to partake of it sparingly.

1929, Robert Dean Frisbee, The Book of Puka-Puka, Eland, published 2019, page 116

High sauces and rich spices are fetch'd from the Indies.

1709-1710, Thomas Baker, Reflections on Learning

All racists I grew up with have rich jobs.

2019 December, Justin Blackburn, The Bisexual Christian Suburban Failure Enlightening Bipolar Blues, page 79

Tho' my Date of mortal Life be short, it shall be glorious; / Each minute shall be rich in some great action.

1707, Nicholas Rowe, The Royal Convert

The gorgeous East with richest hand / Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold.

1667, John Milton, “Book II”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […]; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873,

For countries with rich culinary traditions that date back to the Aztecs and Incas, Mexico and Peru have developed quite a taste for modern food fashions. Mexicans quaff more fizzy drinks than any other country; Peru has the highest density of fast-food joints in the world.

2013 July 27, “Battle of the bulge”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8846

Sham Shui Po might be one of Hong Kong’s poorest neighbourhoods but it has a rich immigrant history and a glut of fantastic street-food joints.

2021 August 18, Lee Cobaj, “Best things to do in Hong Kong”, in The Times‎, archived from the original on 2021-10-25‎

rich and various gems

1634 October 9 (first performance), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637; reprinted as Comus: […] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903,

Now, if money be a marketable commodity like flour, as the Witness states, is it not rather a rich idea that of selling the use of a barrel of flour instead of the barrel of flour itself?

1858, William Brown (of Montreal), The Commercial Crisis: Its Cause and Cure (page 28)

It is a bit rich to oppress, torture, imprison, enslave, deport and proscribe a people for 200 years, and then take credit for the fact that they are democratic at the end of it.

2017 March 8, Shashi Tharoor, “‘But What About the Railways... ?’ ​​The Myth of Britain’s Gifts to India”, in The Guardian‎, retrieved 14 April 2018

A skilled multimedia developer will have no problems adding interactive video and audio into existing rich media web pages.

2002, David Austerberry, The Technology of Video and Audio Streaming

Some rich text email messages contain formatting information that's best viewed with Microsoft Word.

2003, Patricia Cardoza, Patricia DiGiacomo, Using Microsoft Office Outlook 2003

But what did matter was that the new web platform provided a rich experience.

2008, Aaron Newman, Adam Steinberg, Jeremy Thomas, Enterprise 2.0 Implementation

Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are...

1926 Jan., F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Rich Boy", The Red Book Magazine, Vol. 46, No. 3, p. 28

...if he lived he would never write about her, he knew that now. Nor about any of them. The rich were dull and they drank too much, or they played too much backgammon. They were dull and they were repetitious. He remembered poor Scott Fitzgerald and his romantic awe of them and how he had started a story once that began, "The rich are different from you and me." And how some one had said to Scott, Yes, they have more money. But that was not humorous to Scott. He thought they were a special glamourous race and when he found they weren't it wrecked him just as much as any other thing that wrecked him.

1936 Aug., Ernest Hemingway, "The Snows of Kilimanjaro", Esquire

...Hem is headed for Wyoming,—& wasn't that reference to Scott, in his splendid story otherwise, contemptable, & more so because he said "I am getting to know the rich" & Molly Colum said—we were at lunch together—"the only difference between the rich & other people is that the rich have more money."

1936 Aug. 15, Maxwell Perkins, letter to Elizabeth Lemmon

This is the same Randian bullshit that we've been hearing from people like Brooks for ages and its entire premise is really revolting and insulting—this idea that the way society works is that the productive "rich" feed the needy "poor," and that any attempt by the latter to punish the former for "excesses" might inspire Atlas to Shrug his way out of town and leave the helpless poor on their own to starve. That's basically Brooks's entire argument here. Yes, the rich and powerful do rig the game in their own favor, and yes, they are guilty of "excesses"—but fucking deal with it, if you want to eat.

2010 Jan. 27, Matt Taibbi, "Populism: Just Like Racism!", True/Slant

And than he shall be riched ſo, That it may faile nevermo(please add an English translation of this quotation)

c. 1386–1390, John Gower, edited by Reinhold Pauli, Confessio Amantis of John Gower: Edited and Collated with the Best Manuscripts, volumes (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), London: Bell and Daldy […], published 1857

With shadowy forests and with champains rich'd

c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)