- Home
- Idioms
- filthy
filthy
filthy lucre
money. I sure could use a little of that filthy lucre. I don't want to touch any of your filthy lucre.
filthy rich
1. Fig. very wealthy. I wouldn't mind being filthy rich. There are too many filthy rich people now.
2. Fig. people who are very wealthy. The filthy rich can afford that kind of thing, but I can't. I sort of feel sorry for the filthy rich.
filthy/stinking rich
(informal) extremely rich Most of us are stinking rich compared to the average citizen in the Third World. Palm Beach has the highest concentration of filthy rich folk in the world.
filthy lucre
Money; originally, money obtained dishonestly. For example, She didn't like the job but loved the filthy lucre in the form of her weekly paycheck. This term comes from the Bible (Titus 1:11), where it refers to those who teach wrongly for the sake of money. In time it came to be used loosely, and usually jokingly, for money in general, and in the mid-1900s gave rise to the jocular slang term the filthy for "money." Although both versions may be dying out, the expression filthy rich, for "extremely wealthy," survives.
filthy lucre
(...ˈlukɚ) n. money. I sure could use a little of that filthy lucre.
filthy rich
1. mod. very wealthy. I wouldn’t mind being filthy rich.
2. n. people who are very wealthy. The filthy rich can afford that kind of thing, but I can’t.