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In Vietnamese, we say "he lived in silk" (literally translated from Vietnamese) to mean he had a luxury life in which he was pampered with luxurious things from head to toe.

I actually saw this phrase in subtitles of a Chinese movie which I couldn't remember the name.

Can I say "he lived in silk" to mean he had a luxury life in which he was pampered with luxurious things?

If not, do we have an equivalent phrase in English?

Note: in Chinese culture, in the past, rich people often wore clothes in silk.

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    "A life of luxury" not "a luxury life".
    – TimR
    Commented Aug 7 at 10:07
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    The usual phrase is "He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth." But it refers to inherited wealth and privilege. There's also "He lived in the lap of luxury." which could include acquired wealth.
    – TimR
    Commented Aug 7 at 10:09
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    Are you asking if this is a known phrase in English, or whether it would be reasonably understood when used? There are proverbs/idioms from my native language that aren't known in English but most people would understand what I mean (e.g. "one man's death is another man's bread" is one that I've used plenty of times and no English speaker has struggled to understand the gist of it)
    – Flater
    Commented Aug 7 at 23:05
  • This question asked about the term 'velvet' being used as you use 'silk' here. However, answers seem to indicate it's a rare or archaic phrase.
    – gowenfawr
    Commented Aug 7 at 23:22
  • You could say "he wanted for nothing", meaning that he had access to whatever luxury he could imagine.
    – Spehro 'speff' Pefhany
    Commented Aug 8 at 4:15

3 Answers 3

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No, live in silk is not used. You may see some in Google Books, but they are false positives.

We could use live in the lap of luxury, or live in clover:

He lived in the lap of luxury.

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    As a literal translation (if there is a similar expression in Chinese) it would be understood by English speakers, even though we don't use the exact expression ourselves. I would call the translation unidiomatic rather than wrong.
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Aug 7 at 8:08
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    Yes, but that doesn’t mean that live in silk is an expression. After all, rich people also often read classical literature, so does that mean that live reading classical literature would be understood to mean “enjoy a life of luxury”?
    – Paul Tanenbaum
    Commented Aug 7 at 10:57
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    Live it up is plain wrong as it connotes a short-term period of enjoying yourself more than you usually would (hence the "up" as opposed to "down"), and live in clover is the most direct alternative but too obscure to be known off-hand by most English speakers. In the lap of luxury is the only one here that would be commonly understood, and even then it might sound a little too archaic for colloquial conversation.
    – Hashim Aziz
    Commented Aug 7 at 15:58
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    I'm not sure where "live in clover" is used. I have a feeling it's either localized in use or has fallen out of favor.
    – Jason Patterson
    Commented Aug 7 at 20:38
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    @PaulTanenbaum: "Is this already a known phrase?" and "can I use it?" are two different questions. Silk is an expensive fabric, and it's reasonable to infer that "living your life in silk" implies something about the abundant wealth you lived in. Similarly, if I said "he lived in his mother's arms" you'd be able to infer that I mean he was mollycoddled by his mother. Something doesn't need to be explicitly defined as a phrase for it to be understandable when it is said. That is taking prescriptivism to a dogmatic level and leaving the evolution of language to dictionary authors alone.
    – Flater
    Commented Aug 7 at 23:00
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The meaning of that phrase should be understood by most English speakers, though they may think you are trying to sound poetic.

A more common phrase to convey the same meaning is "born with a silver spoon in your mouth".
I've never heard of the "in clover" phrase before. From the sound of it I would guess that is more of a British-English phrase.

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    Bear in mind "born with a silver spoon in your mouth" specifically refers to someone born into wealth. If they acquired wealth later in life, be it through hard work or good fortune, it would not apply.
    – Crazymoomin
    Commented Aug 7 at 15:05
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    I haven't heard in clover in my entire 30 year life as a native in the UK and it definitely wouldn't be understood by most people (anymore at least). For the reasons mentioned by @Crazymoomin born with a silver spoon in your mouth is not the most accurate, but it's a little more so than live it up, and it's much more likely to be understood than live in the lap of luxury and live in clover. Besides most rich people are born into it anyway, so it in practice won't make that much difference. ;)
    – Hashim Aziz
    Commented Aug 7 at 16:07
  • Dictionaries don't label living in clover as a specifically British usage. See The Free Dictionary.
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Aug 8 at 12:57
  • Silver spoon refers to the past. Literally at birth, in fact. "He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but was now wondering how long it would be before he had to file for bankrupcy". "Living in the lap of luxury" rather implies he still is, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
    – nigel222
    Commented Aug 8 at 17:28
  • @Kate_Bunting I immediately thought of "living in clover" but I'm 67, so it may have fallen out of recent usage. It refers to a cow in pasture of the highest quality.
    – nigel222
    Commented Aug 8 at 17:30
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No, living in silk is not idiomatic English, though it would probably be understood to mean what you desire in a poetic sense.

If your goal is an idiomatic phrase that corresponds to yours, you could say that someone was living like a king or living in the lap of luxury, for instance. As noted in comments, someone who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth specifically was born to wealth, though they may no longer be wealthy. There are a great many idioms that mean someone is living well that aren't particularly widely used, like living in clover or perhaps living high on the hog, but which might be useful in specific situations.

There are also individual words for this kind of lifestyle. Luxury and opulence are probably the most commonly used. You could say that someone lived in luxury or had a luxurious/opulent lifestyle.

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  • Worse, "taking silk" means being appointed as a senior barrister in English English.
    – Mark Morgan Lloyd
    Commented Aug 9 at 12:17

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