well off

comparative better off · comparative more well off · superlative best off · superlative most well off · alternative well-off

1. Of a person: in fortunate circumstances, especially having financial security, at any level from intermediate (comfortably off) to high (wealthy).

   Near-synonyms: well-endowed, wealthy; see also Thesaurus:wealthy

   3 more examples

   He is very well off as a result of his stock portfolio containing some big winners over the years.

   Of all the queer collections of humans outside of a crazy asylum, it seemed to me this sanitarium was the cup winner. […] When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose.

   1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter V, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC

   While Kate Roberts came from a poor background and, later in life, in the post-Second World War period suffered from severe money shortages, in the early 1930s, she and her husband must have counted themselves relatively well off, particularly in comparison with their neighbours in Tonypandy.

   2011, Kate Gramich, chapter 3, in Kate Roberts, University of Wales Press, →ISBN, page 46

   Synonyms: well-heeled, comfortable, well-endowed, wealthy, bow-legged wi' brass, comfortably off, filthy rich, loaded · Antonyms: badly off, ill off, almsless, arm, badly off, bankrupt, beggared, beggarly

2. archaicdialectalOf a person or thing: in a good position or circumstance.

   He would be well off if he would simply quit this place and never look back.

   2 more examples

   […] as to the advisability of marriage. On the whole, the young man is inclined to avoid the risks and dangers of conjugal life. However, he complains of the persistence and the uncontrollableness of his passions. He seems to think that he would be well off if he could be entirely free from them. He appeals to the physician for advice as to some method of freeing himself from his natural tendencies.

   1966, Edward Willis Scripps, edited by Oliver Knight, I Protest: Selected Disquisitions of E. W. Scripps, University of Wisconsin Press, →ISBN, page 422

   […] or five, each of which permits a player up to four different squares from which to choose. Least desirable are moves corresponding to the numbers one and two on the die which permit only up to two choices of squares. It should be clear that the greater the number of options open to a player the greater his strategic flexibility for advancing to or avoiding particular placements. If a player could influence the roll of the die he would be well off if he could restrict his rolls to four, five and six because these three numbers represent the full range of move types and are the most flexible strategically.

   1977, Canadian Review of American Studies, volume 8, page 54

   Synonyms: doing well