social climbing
Pursuing higher circles
Social climbing is the deliberate pursuit of higher social status, typically through cultivating relationships with people of wealth or influence.
The term carries a whiff of disapproval—social climbers are seen as calculating and inauthentic, befriending people for advantage rather than genuine connection: She dismissed him as a social climber who married for money.
- parvenuGraceless new-money type
- nouveau richeRecently wealthy, often showy
- new moneySelf-earned, not inherited wealth
- ostentationVulgar flaunting of means
- opportunismExploiting circumstances for gain
attention-seeking · arriviste · networking · self-promotion · name-dropping · ambition · elite · advancement · status symbols · manipulation · maneuvering · snobbery · class struggle · aspiring · conspicuous consumption · gatekeeping · economic mobility · sycophancy
- high societygossip, socialites, socialite, aristocrats, aristocrat
- social behaviorcourtesy, etiquette, friendship, greeting, cooperation
- social classupper class, middle class, lower class, working class, class
- Gilded AgeGilded Age, robber baron, robber barons, Carnegie, Rockefeller
- Jane Austen themespride, vanity, manners, courtship, matchmaking
- Regency SocietyRegency, manners, etiquette, courtship, ballrooms
social climbingcontentment
Peaceful satisfaction with circumstances
humility · unpretentiousness · modesty · keeping a low profile · staying in one's lane
climb, social, society, associate, climbing, association, sociable, climber, climbs