Meaning & use
materialistic person
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Meaning
nouncountabledisapproving
Someone who cares a lot about money and possessions and thinks they are more important than other things.
Grammar: Countable; you can say 'a materialistic person' or 'materialistic people' for more than one.
Patterns
- a materialistic person
- materialistic people
- be materialistic
He's such a materialistic person that he only dates people who own expensive cars.
Some people think that being a materialistic person means you can't be truly happy.
She's not a materialistic person; she prefers experiences to things.
Common combinations
- highly materialistic
- In a highly materialistic society, people often judge each other by their possessions.
- materialistic values
- His materialistic values made him choose a high-paying job over a meaningful one.
- materialistic attitude
- Her materialistic attitude toward life worried her parents.
Synonyms and how they differ
- greedy
- Stronger and more negative; it focuses on wanting more than you need, while materialistic focuses on valuing possessions.
- acquisitive
- More formal and often used in writing; it means eager to acquire things, but doesn't necessarily imply disapproval.
Opposites
Word family
- materialism noun
- The belief that money and possessions are the most important things in life.
- materialistic adjective
- Describing someone who cares a lot about money and possessions.
Commonly confused: materialistic person or material?
materialistic person vs material
As an adjective, 'material' means relating to physical things, not to a person's attitude. A 'material person' is not a common phrase; use 'materialistic' for the attitude.
Practice
Choose the sentence that uses 'materialistic person' correctly.
Choose one answer.
Option 0 correctly uses the phrase to describe someone who values possessions. Option 1 uses 'material' instead of 'materialistic', which is wrong for this meaning. Option 2 contradicts the meaning of materialistic (helping the poor is not materialistic). Option 3 is illogical because loving money is exactly what makes someone materialistic.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “materialistic person”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.