parvenu
UK/ˈpɑː.və.njuː//ˈpɑɹ.və.nju/
parvenu noun: a person who has risen, climbed up, or has been promoted to a higher social class, especially through acquisition of wealth, privileges, or political authority but has not gained social acceptance by those within that new class.
Noun
parvenu (plural parvenus)
- A person who has risen, climbed up, or has been promoted to a higher social class, especially through acquisition of wealth, privileges, or political authority but has not gained social acceptance by those within that new class.
- But the favourite's power and influence provoke intense ill-feeling among other courtiers, who regard him as a sinister, usurping parvenu with ideas above his station, or perhaps even a sorcerer.2001 January 31, Francis Wheen, “The whole truth about Peter's friends”, in The Guardian
- Synonyms:
- arriviste
Adjective
parvenu (not comparable)
- Being a parvenu; also, like, having the characteristics of, or associated with a parvenu.
- Loss of money is far the worst, then comes ill-health, and then loss of reputation; loss of reputation is a bad third, for, if a man keeps health and money unimpaired, it will be generally found that his loss of reputation is due to breaches of parvenu conventions only, and not to violations of...1903, Samuel Butler, chapter 66, in The Way of All Flesh
- The Progressives were of the educated middle class, angry at the rule of parvenu financiers and industrialists.2001, Norman Birnbaum, After Progress, Oxford University Press
parvenu meaning in Urdu, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada
parvenu in Urdu
- نودولتیا
parvenu in Bengali
- নতুন ধনী, হঠাৎ উন্নীত ব্যক্তি
parvenu in Malayalam
- social climber, upstart, arriviste
- പുതുപ്പപണക്കാരൻ, സംസ്കാരമില്ലാത്ത സമ്പന്നൻ, സമ്പന്നനായ പ്രാകൃതൻ, യശഃപ്രാർത്ഥി, ഔന്നത്യത്തിലെത്താൻ തത്രപ്പെടുന്നവൻ, പുതുമടിശ്ശീലക്കാരൻ
parvenu in Kannada
- ದಿಢೀರ್ ಶ್ರೀಮಂತ, ನವಕುಬೇರ, ಹಠಾತ್ತಾಗಿ ಮೇಲೇರಿದವನು
Synonyms of parvenu
Forms of parvenu
| plural | parvenus |
|---|
Origin of parvenu
Borrowed from French parvenu, past participle of parvenir, from Latin perveniō (“arrive, reach”). See also parvenue f
Words formed from parvenu
Words that rhyme with parvenu
Questions about parvenu
- What does parvenu mean?
- Parvenu means a person who has risen, climbed up, or has been promoted to a higher social class, especially through acquisition of wealth, privileges, or political authority but has not gained social acceptance by those within that new class.
- What is parvenu in Urdu?
- Parvenu in Urdu is نودولتیا. See Parvenu meaning in Urdu.
- What part of speech is parvenu?
- Parvenu can be a noun or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce parvenu?
- Parvenu is pronounced /ˈpɑː.və.njuː/ (UK).
- What is the plural of parvenu?
- The plural of parvenu is parvenus.
Words near parvenu in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: parvenu (page history and authors); parvenu (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); parvenu (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); parvenu (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); parvenu (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-parvenu.ogg.
Cite this entry: “parvenu.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/parvenu. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.