#4: Silk Stocking

Definition:

: an aristocratic or wealthy person

Example:

"[Mayor John Lindsay] was young, good-looking, and Yale-educated, a Republican from the city's Silk Stocking District on the Upper East Side, a district so named in 1897 because of the colonies of wealthy residents along Park and Fifth Avenues."

– Robert Sullivan, Rats, 2004

About the Word:

Although silk clothing remains expensive, silk stockings were truly luxury items in the 19th century and earlier. Even Thomas Jefferson (the face of the $2 bill) made a slightly mocking reference in an 1812 letter to "silk stocking gentry."

Fancy cars and private planes are more obvious markers of wealth now, but the term silk stocking is still occasionally used as it was when Jefferson was writing.