fortune hunter

noun

1. a person who hopes to prosper, especially through marriage to someone of wealth.

fortune-hunter

noun

1. a person who seeks to secure a fortune, esp through marriage

Derived Forms

• ˈfortune-ˌhunting, adjectivenoun

Other Words From

• fortune-hunting adjective noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of fortune hunter¹

First recorded in 1680–90

Example Sentences

The heroes have all been reduced to just one or two identifiable traits: One’s a conspiracy theorist, one’s a fortune-hunter, one’s religious and so on.

From Los Angeles Times

While finishing her degree at Sarah Lawrence, she eloped with a dead-broke fortune-hunter who beat her up.

From Los Angeles Times

Roguish fortune-hunter Nathan Drake returned for his fourth adventure this year, setting out to discover the lost treasure of pirate captain Henry Avery – while also saving his troubled marriage to fellow adventurer, Elena.

From The Guardian

Any fortune-hunter not dissuaded by "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz", F.Scott Fitzgerald's jazz age morality tale of thwarted greed, will find Cancri e about 40 light years, or 230 trillion miles, from Park Avenue.

From Reuters

And so in his ambitious first novel has Lloyd Shepherd, but there the resemblance ends. is an extraordinarily rich mixture of real and imagined characters spanning some 250 years from 1564, when Billy Ablass, a young Oxfordshire fortune-hunter, joins a fleet of ships in Plymouth commanded by Admiral John Hawkins bound for the new world via west Africa, to 1812, when river constable Charles Horton identifies the Ratcliff Highway murderer.

From The Guardian