as in arriviste
one who has recently acquired wealth and social position
having made their money in oil decades ago, they consider these billionaire dot-commers mere upstarts
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of upstart
Last week, the small Chinese upstart DeepSeek announced a new reasoning model, R1, that appears to outperform the best America has to offer, including OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude and Meta's Llama.
—
Ben Berkowitz, Axios, 27 Jan. 2025
Source: Coca-Cola Coca-Cola is launching a prebiotic soda brand called Simply Pop, taking on upstarts Olipop and Poppi.
—Amelia Lucas, CNBC, 18 Feb. 2025
In that time, the finances and internal cohesion of that upstart Amazon Labor Union deteriorated.
—Alina Selyukh, NPR, 15 Feb. 2025
Around then an upstart sports drink company called Barcode started hatching a plan to land Wembanyama as a partner.
—Tania Ganguli, New York Times, 23 Jan. 2025
See All Example Sentences for upstart
Ben Berkowitz, Axios, 27 Jan. 2025
Source: Coca-Cola Coca-Cola is launching a prebiotic soda brand called Simply Pop, taking on upstarts Olipop and Poppi.
—Amelia Lucas, CNBC, 18 Feb. 2025
In that time, the finances and internal cohesion of that upstart Amazon Labor Union deteriorated.
—Alina Selyukh, NPR, 15 Feb. 2025
Around then an upstart sports drink company called Barcode started hatching a plan to land Wembanyama as a partner.
—Tania Ganguli, New York Times, 23 Jan. 2025
See All Example Sentences for upstart
Recent Examples of Synonyms for upstart
Noun
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Where’s our charming arriviste?—
Jason Gay,
WSJ,
21 Dec. 2020
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Compared with some of her peers, she was initially seen as an arriviste.—
Caitlin Moscatello,
New York Times,
3 Mar. 2023
Noun
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In 1952, backed by little more than his reputation as a war hero and a fortune staked by his parvenu father, 35-year-old John F. Kennedy swiped a Senate seat from Republican Henry Cabot Lodge, himself a wealthy combat veteran.—
Kevin Mahnken,
The New Republic,
1 Sep. 2020
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Raveendran, at least on paper, assumes his place among those parvenus thanks to his effort in internet education.—
Saritha Rai,
Fortune,
29 July 2019
Noun
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Often these stories are sad tales of adventurers suffering injuries or losing their lives.—
Frederick Dreier,
Outside Online,
21 Feb. 2025
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Along for the ride will be fellow adventurers Eric Philips of Australia, Jannicke Mikkelsen of Norway and Rabea Rogge of Germany.—
Richard Tribou,
Orlando Sentinel,
21 Feb. 2025
Noun
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The battle of the nouveau riche could just as easily be referred to as the Oil Firm.—
Darren Richman,
The Athletic,
21 Jan. 2025
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Advertisement Who does Johnson consider nouveau riche?—
Ben Bolch,
Los Angeles Times,
19 Dec. 2024
Cite this Entry
“Upstart.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/upstart. Accessed 11 Mar. 2025.
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