Is there any difference between someone being wealthy and someone being rich?
For instance, is Bill Gates rich or wealthy? Or maybe he is both. I don't get the subtle difference if any.
asked Feb 6, 2013 at 2:53
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10 Answers
Wealthy and Rich are both synonymous in terms of money. Both mean "having a great deal of money and assets". So you can interchangebly use them to convey Bill Gates is rich.
However, you can see rich has various usages other than abundance of money. They can be found in the Oxford Dictionary hyperlink I have attached.
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3I disagree that rich and wealthy are synonyms when applied to money; you can be rich without being wealthy. Rich simply means having a lot of money whereas wealthy applies a lot of accumulated money in assets, etc. If you walk into a million pound job tomorrow you can rightly be described as rich; but you will not be wealthy until you've crystallised that money into investments, big houses, etc. Commented Mar 5, 2013 at 17:02
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2Wealth is a more specific term, referring specifically to the value of one's assets. Rich is more general and can mean different things in different contexts. It can be synonymous with wealthy, but it can also refer to having a large income (as @JackAidley mentioned) or it may refer to living an opulent lifestyle. Rich is also more frequently used in reference to non-monetary things.– EraCommented Dec 4, 2015 at 18:39
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There's also implications of social class in "Wealthy" that aren't as common with "Rich".
In other words:
If you say that Bill Gates is rich, you are saying he has lots of money.
If you say that Bill Gates is wealthy, you are saying that he is rich, & that he grew up with lots of money.
A thesaurus at YourDictionary.com explains the difference as:
rich is the general word for one who has more money, possessions, or income-producing property than is necessary to satisfy normal needs; wealthy adds to this connotation of grand living, influence in the community, a tradition of richness, etc.
William Safire, in a 1990 column, puts it as, "a rich family has to wait until its money ages before it becomes a wealthy family."
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2I don't find anything wrong with saying, "Theodore came from a rich family," or, "Linda became wealthy after she won the lottery." I'm wondering if you can include a reference to a dictionary that would support your assertion here; I couldn't find one.– J.R. ♦Commented Feb 6, 2013 at 9:07
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1+1 @J.R.: I agree with this criticism. The only connotation I see that distinguishes rich from wealthy is the value that the speaker/writer places on having a lot of money. Bill Gates is rich and Bill Gates is wealthy, but neither sentence tells us whether he grew up in a poor, a middle-class, an upper middle-class, or a rich family.– user264Commented Feb 6, 2013 at 14:47
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1[thesaurus.yourdictionary.com/rich] (YourDictionary Thesaurus), quoting Webster's New World Dictionary puts the difference as: "rich is the general word for one who has more money, possessions, or income-producing property than is necessary to satisfy normal needs; wealthy adds to this connotation of grand living, influence in the community, a tradition of richness, etc.;" A New York Times [nytimes.com/1990/11/11/magazine/on-language-isn-t-it-rich.html] (article) by William Safire puts it as "a rich family has to wait until its money ages before it becomes a wealthy family". Commented Feb 6, 2013 at 18:56
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1@David: That's excellent supporting information. Just my opinion, but I think the community as a whole would benefit more if you edited that information into your answer, as opposed to trying to cram it into an appended comment. I hope you don't mind that I took the liberty to do just that.– J.R. ♦Commented Feb 9, 2013 at 22:53
In terms of money, rich is used to describe someone who has a certain amount of money/liquid capital (it's relative, however much money makes you 'rich' in my eyes, might not necessarily make you 'rich' in the eyes of Bill Gates). Wealthy is also used in this way, however it is commonly used to describe someone who is beyond rich with just money alone (liquid cash, businesses, investments, etc) so to give an example, your favorite musician might be rich, but Bill Gates or Donald Trump would be considered wealthy.
There is a big difference. When I was younger I thought they were the same, until Magic Johnson gave a interview. He stated that there is a big difference between the two. Even though I do not remember what he said word-for-word, I will always remember the gist of what he said. To paraphrase:
Wealthy is being able to provide for your family generations after your death (sustained money) and being rich is short-lived.
I am 33 years old I have never forgotten that. Me, personally, I want to be wealthy. Please GOD I have been praying and LORD I beg you make me wealthy, no matter what. Amen
There are some good answers here, but I'd like to point out yet another aspect.
Wealthy may suggest a person who has enough money for their needs.
At the same time, rich may connote someone who is demonstrating their money (sometimes, in an exaggerate way).
In this regard, I would say, Bill Gates, who's spending a lot of his earnings to charity, is wealthy, while the person from an image below is rich.
answered Feb 7, 2013 at 14:43
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It is also worth noting that "wealthy" is a much politer way of saying that someone has a lot of money than "rich" is. Often, this is a topic that should be talked about with some caution.
So for example:
- He is rich! > There is a slight air of disgust/jealousy perhaps; I am showing my opinion towards the fact that this person has a lot of money and it is slightly negative.
- He is wealthy. > I am simply commenting on the fact that this person has a lot of money, without showing my opinion.
There is a difference between Switzerland without natural resources and Congo plenty of these resources (coper, titan..) The first one is wealthy and the later is rich but poor
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I'm not sure this is correct. I can easily find examples like " Believe it or not, mega-rich nations like Switzerland and Singapore...." Here Switzerland is described as "rich" not wealthy.– James KCommented Apr 19, 2020 at 14:33
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Welcome to Stack Exchange, Jean-Marie Mottoul! Your answer is deep philosophy, perhaps a bit too deep for some of us. How, exactly, does your example apply to the OP and Bill Gates? Commented Apr 19, 2020 at 15:59
There isn't any difference. They're the same thing.
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3They're the same thing in this context. After all, Tevye appears to use them interchangeably: If I were a rich man / Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum / All day long I'd biddy biddy bum / If I were a wealthy man. However, I wouldn't go so far as to say they are the "same thing," because I'd probably not talk about a wealthy sauce, a wealthy gas mixture, a wealthy voice, or wealthy language, but I could use rich to describe any of those things.– J.R. ♦Commented Feb 6, 2013 at 9:13
While the term rich is used for all the people who have gathered a lot of money, I tend to use wealthy for the people who have done good deeds, have gained popularity and have gathered wealth. The latter is much more "royal".
That was a little confused than we think.Actually I think "rich" mean have a lot of money and possession.In this, situation rich and wealthy are the same.In mental situation it may not be the same.
