well-heeled

English

Etymology

Originally American English, from a literal use in cockfighting: a well-heeled cock was provided with sharp spurs and could inflict maximum damage.[1] From this developed the American frontier slang sense of being well-equipped, and thence the modern sense of being well supplied with money.

Adjective

well-heeled (comparative more well-heeled, superlative most well-heeled)

  1. (colloquial) rich; affluent; prosperous
    • 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:
      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.

Translations

References

  1. Liebling, A. J. (1 April 1950), “Dead Game”, in The New Yorker, retrieved 2012-07-13, pages 35-45
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