well-heeled

Definition

Rich, affluent, prosperous.

Etymology

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

Example Sentences

• "On Professor Solanka’s street, well-heeled white youths lounged in baggy garments on roseate stoops, stylishly simulating indigence while they waited for the billionairedom that would surely be along sometime soon."
• "The world changes, consumerism marches on, and things once considered luxuries for the well-heeled are now taken for granted by us all — homes with 2½ bathrooms, air travel, cars with power windows."
• "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."