Meaning & use
well-heeled
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Meaning
adjectivecomparableinformal
Having plenty of money and the comfortable, expensive lifestyle that goes with it.
Grammar: Used before a noun or after be: a well-heeled crowd, or they are well-heeled.
Patterns
- a well-heeled something
The restaurant draws a well-heeled crowd from the nearby financial district.
Her well-heeled neighbors all have second homes on the coast.
Only the well-heeled can afford to live in the old town these days.
Word forms
| comparative | better-heeled |
|---|---|
| superlative | best-heeled |
Common combinations
- well-heeled clientele
- The boutique caters to a well-heeled clientele.
- well-heeled tourists
- Well-heeled tourists fill the ski resort every February.
- well-heeled neighborhood
- They moved to a well-heeled neighborhood with leafy streets.
- the well-heeled
- Auctions like this are mostly attended by the well-heeled.
Synonyms and how they differ
- wealthy
- Wealthy is neutral and can describe anyone with large assets, while well-heeled stresses a comfortable, polished lifestyle.
- affluent
- Affluent is more formal and common in reports about areas or groups, whereas well-heeled is chattier.
- rich
- Rich is the plainest and strongest word; well-heeled sounds softer and a little more stylish.
- loaded
- Loaded is very casual slang for having a lot of cash, and lacks the genteel tone of well-heeled.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: well-heeled or well-healed?
well-heeled vs well-healed
This is a common misspelling. Heeled comes from heel, the part of a shoe, not from healing a wound.
Practice
The new gallery is aimed at ______ collectors who can spend thousands on a single painting.
Choose one answer.
Well-heeled means rich, which fits people who spend thousands. Well-known only means famous, and the other two describe intentions or behavior, not money.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “well-heeled”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.