Idiom
silver spoon
Meaning
Wealth passed down or inherited.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.”
“You do not need a silver spoon to become a successful business owner.”
“She never had to work a day in her life because she was born with a silver spoon.”
“The politician tried to act like a normal person, but everyone knew he grew up with a silver spoon and never worried about bills.”
“Despite his lack of professional experience, his family's silver spoon ensured he secured the executive position without any real competition.”
Examples
simple
“He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.”
“You do not need a silver spoon to become a successful business owner.”
contextual
“She never had to work a day in her life because she was born with a silver spoon.”
“The politician tried to act like a normal person, but everyone knew he grew up with a silver spoon and never worried about bills.”
complex
“Despite his lack of professional experience, his family's silver spoon ensured he secured the executive position without any real competition.”
Origin
The term originates in 18th-century European table-setting customs, a period during which diners were expected to provide their own utensils for a meal. Members of the land-owning classes distinguished themselves from the peasantry by carrying silver cutlery, a practice that established silver as the standard material for the elite and gave rise to the term silverware. The presence of such an object at a birth indicated an immediate entry into the property-holding class without the inconvenience of social mobility.
Key words
Related idioms
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