English

Alternative forms

• fortune-hunter

Noun

fortune hunter ‎(plural fortune hunters)

1. A person who eagerly seeks wealth without working to earn it, especially in an adventurous way or in an unsavory or unscrupulous way such as by marrying another in order to acquire that person's money.
   • 1766, Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield, ch. 5:

     "There is no character more contemptible than a man that is a fortune-hunter, and I can see no reason why fortune-hunting women should not be contemptible too."

   • c. 1802, Maria Edgeworth, "Almeria" From Tales and Novels, Volume V:

     [H]e did not know of what use money could be to a woman, except to make her a prey to a fortune-hunter.

   • 1841, Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge, ch. 15:

     "The stock-exchange, the pulpit, the counting-house, the royal drawing-room, the senate,—what but fortune-hunters are they filled with?"

   • 1916, P. G. Wodehouse, Uneasy Money, ch. 5:

     She pictured him as a crafty adventurer, a wretched fortune-hunter.

   • 1998 Jan. 25, Matthew Sweet, "Cinema: Kate Winslet: the sinking man's crumpet" (film review of Titanic), The Independent (UK) (retrieved 6 June 2014):

     101-year-old Rose (Gloria Stuart) returns to the scene of waterlogged hubris, where fortune hunter Lovett (Bill Paxton) is diving for diamonds.

   • 2009 Nov. 6, Seth Schiesel, "Video Game Review: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves," New York Times (retrieved 6 June 2014):

     [T]he swashbuckling modern-day fortune hunter Nathan Drake treks from Istanbul to Borneo to the highest peaks of the Himalayas in search of the lost treasures of the mystical Shambhala.

Translations

See also

• gold digger
• soldier of fortune

References

• fortune hunter at OneLook Dictionary Search