affluent - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Borrowed from Middle French affluent, borrowed in turn from Latin affluentem, accusative singular of affluēns, present active participle of affluō (“flow to or towards; overflow with”), from ad (“to, towards”) + fluō (“flow”) (cognate via latter to fluid, flow). Sense of “wealthy” (plentiful flow of goods) c. 1600, which also led to nominalization affluence.[1] By surface analysis, af- +‎ fluent.

affluent (plural affluents)

  1. Someone who is wealthy.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:wealthy person
    • 1994, Philip D. Cooper, Health care marketing: a foundation for managed quality, page 183:
      The affluents are most similar to the professional want-it-alls in their reasons for preferring specific hospitals and in their demographic characteristics.
  2. A stream or river flowing into a larger river or into a lake; a tributary stream; a tributary.
    Synonym: influent
    • 1874, Bayard Taylor, compiler, “The Countries of Central Asia”, in Central Asia. Travels in Cashmere, Little Tibet, and Central Asia (Illustrated Library of Travel, Exploration, and Adventure), New York, N.Y.: Scribner, Armstrong, and Company, →OCLC, page 7:
      It [Central Asia] is separated from the river-system of the Aral and Caspian Seas, […] from the affluents of the Indus and Ganges, on the south, by the chain of the Küen-lün, the rival of the Himalayas, […]
    • 1895, J[ohn] W[esley] Powell, chapter I, in Canyons of the Colorado, Meadville, PA: Flood & Vincent; republished as The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons, New York: Dover, 1961, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 20:
      Its sources are everywhere in pine-clad mountains and plateaus, but all of the affluents quickly descend into the desert valley below, through which the Gila winds its way westward to the Colorado.

someone who is wealthy

affluent (comparative more affluent, superlative most affluent)

  1. Abundant; copious; plenteous.
    • 1860, Mary Howitt, transl., Life in the Old World:
      The shores are affluent in beauty, and incomparably lovely is the drive to the heights of Castel-a-Mare.
  2. (by extension) Abounding in goods or riches; having a moderate level of material wealth.
    They were affluent, but aspired to true wealth.
    • 2008 January 30, Nick Fox, “Taking Worry Off the Plate”, in The New York Times‎[1], archived from the original on 5 May 2021:
      One reason, the department suggested, was that affluent New Yorkers were likely to eat expensive fish high in mercury, like swordfish and tuna.
  3. (dated) Tributary.
  4. (obsolete) Flowing to; flowing abundantly.
    • 1672, Gideon Harvey, Morbus Anglicus, Or, The Anatomy of Consumptions:
      affluent blood

abundant

abounding in goods or riches; materially wealthy

tributary

  1. ^ Douglas Harper (2001–2026), “affluent”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
  2. ^ affluent in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 affluent in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.

affluent (feminine affluente, masculine plural affluents, feminine plural affluentes)

  1. tributary

affluent m (plural affluents)

  1. tributary; affluent

affluent

  1. third-person plural present indicative/subjunctive of affluer

affluent

  1. third-person plural future active indicative of affluō