Bob/PKB
4 Answers
ROMOS
Best answer!
I found this.
Filthy rich
Meaning
Very rich, possibly having become so by unfair means.
Origin
This little phrase can't be explained without looking at the word lucre. From the 14th century lucre has meant money and is referred to as such by no less writers than Chaucer and John Wyclif. These references generally included a negative connotation and gave rise to the terms "foul lucre" and "filthy lucre", which have been in use since the 16th century. "Filthy lucre" appears first in print in 1526 in the works of William Tindale:
"Teachinge thinges which they ought not, because of filthy lucre."
Tindale was here using the term to mean dishonourable gain.
Following on the the term "filthy lucre", money became known by the slang term "the filthy", and it isn't a great leap from there to the rich being called the "filthy rich". This was first used as a noun phrase meaning "rich people; who have become so by dishonourable means". It was used that way in America, where it was coined, from the 1920s onwards. Here's an item from the Ohio newspaper The Lima News, February 1929, which deplores the get-rich-quick attitudes of some who were exploiting those who had to sell their homes at unreasonably low prices in order to eat during the economic crash:
"There is a depressed market. If any of our stock-gambling filthy rich want a winter home, now is the time to acquire it."
As time went on the negative associations have softened somewhat. It has become to mean "extremely rich" rather than "dishonourably rich", although there may still be a trace of an unfavourable implication associated with it.
| 11 years ago. Rating: 16 | |
jhharlan
melandrupert
No country has a closer association with the language of Olde Englande than the USA. From the days of the first Puritan settlers to recent cross-Atlantic tweetings, the two countries have shared in the development of English. Many words and phrases used in the USA have retained Elizabethan English meanings and pronounciations that have long disappeared in the Mother Country. Of course, there are many American phrases which are used there but haven't been adopted outside the country; for example, 'blue plate special', 'lead-pipe cinch' and 'presto chango' are widely understood in the US, but would procure puzzled looks in other English-speaking countries.Here's our list of (some of) the many English phrases are were 'coined in the USA' and now used around the world.
A shot in the arm
A sledgehammer to crack a nut
Acid test - The
All singing, all dancing
An arm and a leg
As easy as pie
As happy as a clam
Baby boomer
Back to the drawing board
Back-seat driver - A
Bad hair day - A
Barking up the wrong tree
Bats in the belfry
Be afraid, be very afraid
Bee's knees - The
Between a rock and a hard place
Big fish in a small pond - A
Birds and the bees - The
Blast from the past - A
Blaze a trail
Blonde bombshell - A
Born again
Break a leg
Brownie points
Bunny boiler - A
Bury the hatchet
Card-sharp - A
Catch 22
Chaise lounge
Chick flick - A
Climb on the bandwagon
Close, but no cigar
Coin a phrase
Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey
Cold turkey
Cost an arm and a leg
Customer is always right - The
Cut to the chase
Dead ringer - A
Doom and gloom
Double whammy
Down the tubes
Drop-dead gorgeous
Ethnic cleansing
Face the music
Fancy pants
Fashion victim - A
Feeding frenzy - A
Fifteen minutes of fame
Filthy rich
I know it has nothing to do with your question but I really didnt know this very interesting only went up to the Fs
| 11 years ago. Rating: 4 | |
sandie3
