as in parvenus
one who has recently acquired wealth and social position
the town's old money immediately shunned these vulgar arrivistes, who may have had the cash but certainly not the class
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Recent Examples of arrivistes
And yet, the digital arrivistes could only gain so much traction with a broader customer base and needed a boost from tie-ins with old-school counterparts.
—
Brian Steinberg, Variety, 20 Apr. 2026
Certainly there’s a long and distinguished tradition of associating Jewish arrivistes with entrepreneurialism, avarice, and clannishness.
—Gideon Lewis-Kraus, New Yorker, 24 Nov. 2025
Brian Steinberg, Variety, 20 Apr. 2026
Certainly there’s a long and distinguished tradition of associating Jewish arrivistes with entrepreneurialism, avarice, and clannishness.
—Gideon Lewis-Kraus, New Yorker, 24 Nov. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for arrivistes
upstarts
Noun
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The desire to merge audiences — younger viewers for the mainstream news groups and broader audiences for the digital upstarts — is at the crux of many of these new agreements, which are expected to get more ambitious as time progresses.—
Brian Steinberg,
Variety,
20 Apr. 2026
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In their place are upstarts such as the Philadelphia Flyers, who last qualified in 2020.—
John Wawrow,
The Orlando Sentinel,
16 Apr. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Arrivistes.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/arrivistes. Accessed 3 May. 2026.
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