trophy wife

Definition

A wife, usually young and attractive, regarded as a status symbol for her husband, usually older and affluent.

Etymology

Popularized by Julie Connelly in a Fortune magazine cover story in 1989, by analogy with a real estate trophy building.

Example Sentences

• "[…] while Mrs. Scott-Baxter, his fourth (and trophy) wife, blonde and young and bored, glowered at the Baxter spawn like a mother mink in a mink farm, just waiting for a jet to strafe the facility, affording her an excuse to feign terror and eat her young."
• "But don't expect this one to break up. Arnold [Schwarzenegger] got his trophy wife—a real-life Kennedy, his entreé to the top social echelons in the country—and he's not about to let her go."
• ""Women considered trophy wives are accomplished and ambitious," she reported, "in both their careers and their lives. […] On what was trophy wife bottomed, as they say at the Supreme Court?"