How to Use social climber in a Sentence

social climber

noun
  • Blame the social climbers on the board of Ruthie’s museum.
    Joanne Kaufman, WSJ, 23 May 2018
  • The shameless social climber was confronted and bowed out of the group.
    Amy Dickinson, Washington Post, 25 June 2019
  • Prince Harry is a depressed man-child who is married to a social climber.
    Ed Stockly, Los Angeles Times, 22 Nov. 2021
  • Wiig plays Maxine, a social climber trying to land with the right movers and shakers in Palm Beach.
    Marianne Garvey, CNN, 18 Mar. 2024
  • The novel once again featured socialites, social climbers and high society’s help in the cast.
    Borys Kit, The Hollywood Reporter, 20 Nov. 2017
  • No, this social climber climbed right off the battlefield, hosed off, changed into civvies, and rolled onto Rodeo Drive.
    Frank Markus, Car and Driver, 9 Sep. 2023
  • The space in between provides this shameless social climber a whirlwind tour of all the fame, fortune and romance a modern city can offer.
    Peter Debruge, Variety, 6 Sep. 2021
  • There was, no doubt, some bigotry at play in the press’ assessment of al-Fayed as a desperate social climber who couldn’t quite grasp the elusive rules by which the upper class live.
    Eliana Dockterman, Time, 9 Nov. 2022
  • In the mid aughts, the British tabloids frequently painted the Middletons as advantageous social climbers.
    Elise Taylor, Vogue, 14 Dec. 2023
  • But Gatsby also comes to mind, as does Zelig, popping up in every corner of the culture; even Rastignac, the ceaseless social climber of several Balzac novels.
    Jon Blistein, Rolling Stone, 19 July 2022
  • From a very young age, Florence—social climber, businesswoman, grande horizontale, patron of the arts—perfected the art of filling the hours of her lovers.
    Caroline Moorehead, WSJ, 2 Mar. 2018
  • Slavery and the American Revolution, notes of a social climber, monastic distractions, a French thriller and more.
    Harold Holzer, WSJ, 20 Jan. 2023
  • The second is a series of apologies and excuses for a tax cheat, voyeur-sadist, bad son, skinflint, publicity hound, social climber, shopaholic.
    Stephen Metcalf, Los Angeles Times, 22 Apr. 2020
  • As for his latest role as manipulative and entitled social climber Adam Pratt in season 4 of You.
    Brianne Tracy, Peoplemag, 1 Apr. 2023
  • Tomlinson hazards that, for a social climber, hunting with aristocrats was that era’s version of golfing with C.E.O.s.
    Peter Schjeldahl, The New Yorker, 14 Sep. 2020
  • As Weisberg point out, it was written by Lord Chesterfield, a scheming social climber who never intended for his correspondences with his son Philip to be published.
    Jackie Mansky, Smithsonian, 19 Apr. 2018
  • Upon Ramona's return to the table, Sonja responds to the first conversation prompt, which sends her spiraling on a rant about how Ramona is a social climber with no authentic purpose.
    Mary Sollosi, EW.com, 20 Aug. 2021
  • Born into a humble family, this ambitious social climber married the brother of Pope Innocent X.
    Pamela McCourt Francescone, Travel + Leisure, 17 Mar. 2021
  • Because Odette spends her evenings at Madame Verdurin’s, Swann stoically endures the company of that supercilious social climber and her sycophantic hangers-on.
    Michael Dirda, Washington Post, 3 Nov. 2022
  • Rodolfo immediately dismisses Patrizia as a gold digger, a déclassé social climber who can’t tell a Picasso from a Klimt.
    David Sims, The Atlantic, 23 Nov. 2021
  • And with three skilled actresses at the film’s center, characters that could so easily be reduced to familiar stereotypes — the crazy one, the conniving one, the social climber — are instead imbued with humanity.
    Alissa Wilkinson, Vox, 21 Nov. 2018
  • The rituals associated with the horse race in Louisville — including sipping mint juleps while wearing opulent attire — are irresistible for many social climbers.
    Bill Brownlee, Kansas City Star, 30 Jan. 2024
  • Jenny is no cynical social climber—the connection is felt both ways; her devotion is genuine—but Hazzard cleverly paints her aspirations in terms of her surroundings.
    Hillary Kelly, The New Republic, 4 Jan. 2023
  • The papers also painted Carole as an advantageous social climber.
    Elise Taylor, Vogue, 14 Dec. 2023
  • Our research shows that from a psychological standpoint, social climbers fall into six basic personality types.
    Dirk Wittenborn and Jazz Johnson, Town & Country, 10 Oct. 2014

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'social climber.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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