Question
Updated on
15 Jun 2016
- Russian
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English (UK)
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English (US)
Question about English (UK)
What is the difference between wealth and riches ?Feel free to just provide example sentences.
What is the difference between wealth and riches ?Feel free to just provide example sentences.
In context of this sentence "People often say that while money may bring wealth, friends bring riches"
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- English (UK)
- Welsh Near fluent
Wealth is specifically money, but riches can be referred to other positive things like a social circle, expensive property etc... all the "riches" of life & what makes life rich.
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- English (UK)
I would not say wealth is specifically money even though wealth (in financial terms) can mean money and other assets (like property, valuable works of art, stocks, etc). Not to mention things like "a wealth of ideas" or phrases like "I am wealthy in spirit." I would say it's the other way around; riches seems to refer more to money (which includes assets (stocks, property, etc) as well as resources).
And I suppose that's why I find the sentence given in the original post a little odd.
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- English (UK)
When I googled:
WEALTH:
"1. an abundance of valuable possessions or money…
2. a plentiful supply of a particular desirable thing…
3. Well-being (archaic)"
RICHES:
"1. material wealth…
2. valuable or abundant resources."
Riches seems to generally be tangible, where wealth can be a bit more abstract in nature. But they are probably used very similarly in practice with intended meaning dependant on the speaker's own interpretation regardless of what is correct…
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- English (UK)
- Welsh Near fluent
It depends how abstract you want to be with language. Both mean the same really, but in my opinion riches or richness is a much better word to describe good things in life rather than wealth, because it's directly related to money in conversational english. But yeah, they mean the same & you can choose whichever works better for you, no big deal!
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- English (UK)
@etherealluna: Riches are also directly related to money though. It's only through poetic language that either of them is applicable to anything else… And I'm sure I can find a *wealth* of resources to support that… ;) hehe
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- English (UK)
- Welsh Near fluent
- English (UK)
@etherealluna: Even in spite of the dictionary definitions? :S
(By the way, I really didn't mean to get you annoyed if that's the case…You seem a little irritated but I hope I'm just reading the tone of the exclamation point wrongly…). There are definitely situations where either one can be used to refer to money or be used more abstractly, though the dictionary seems to suggest that wealth is used more broadly where riches are usually more resource based…which isn't to say that you don't sometimes use each differently. But I think it's worth knowing how similar they are and that it is not quite as clear cut as wealth being only money. (I.e. Wealth of ideas, wealth of experience, wealth of knowledge, wealth of information, "get rich quick" as opposed to "get wealthy quick", etc.) But your example of the "riches of life" is a good example of "riches" being used similarly. To deny that "wealth" is very abstract just isn't right though :/
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