Other forms: wealthiest, wealthier
Wealthy means having a great deal of money. A wealthy family, wealthy enough to retire, the wealthy nations.
It is slightly more formal and more settled than rich: rich can be sudden, wealthy sounds inherited or accumulated. The wealthy as a plural noun means wealthy people generally. Note wealth, which also means abundance of anything — a wealth of experience, a wealth of detail — and that wealth and health come from the same Old English pattern, one built on weal and the other on hale.
1adjectivewealthyHaving a great deal of money.
“They live in a wealthy part of town, full of big houses with gardens.”
synonyms: rich, affluent, prosperous
wealthy is a state of having money.
Also accepted in games: rich
Wealth comes from Middle English wele, meaning wellbeing — the same word as weal in the phrase the common weal, which became commonwealth. Wealth meant happiness before it meant money, and the shift says something.
Middle English
welthy
English, today
wealthy
From Middle English welthy, welþi, equivalent to wealth + -y. Cognate with Middle Dutch weldech, weeldech (“magnificent, luscious, lavish”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA