Riches

How to spell riches

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce riches

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does riches mean?

1. nounA large amount of money, property, or valuable possessions.

Riches in a sentence

• The family lost their riches in a string of bad investments.

• He believed hard work, not luck, brought him his riches.

Where does riches come from?

Language of origin: French

This word came into English through Old French richesse, meaning 'wealth' or 'abundance', which was built on the adjective riche, meaning 'rich' or 'powerful'. The French riche itself traces back to a Germanic root, related to the same ancestor that gave English the word 'rich', which originally carried the sense of 'powerful' or 'mighty' rather than simply 'wealthy'. When English speakers borrowed richesse in the medieval period, they heard the final '-esse' as a plural ending and reshaped the word into 'riches', a plural noun. That is the spelling trap in miniature: it looks like a simple plural of 'rich', but it descends from a singular French abstract noun, so there is no singular 'riche' in modern English. The same Germanic root also lies behind the German 'reich', meaning 'empire' or 'realm', a reminder of the older 'powerful' sense.

How the word is built

• rich (wealthy, from Old French riche)
• -es (treated as English plural ending)