From rags to riches means going from poverty to wealth, rising from nothing to success. Rags are old torn clothes, and riches means great wealth. The phrase usually sounds admiring: it's how people describe a success story.
When would you say from rags to riches?
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go/rise + from rags to riches; a rags-to-riches story/tale
- My grandfather went from rags to riches after opening a small bakery in the 1960s.
- The film tells a classic rags-to-riches story about a poor boy who becomes a famous chef.
- Few startup founders really rise from rags to riches; most have some help at the start.
What changed
First versionHer life went from rags to rich in just ten years.
RevisionHer life went from rags to riches in just ten years.
Rich is an adjective, but after from rags to you need a noun, just like rags: from torn clothes to wealth. So rich was replaced with riches. In this sense, riches is always plural, like rags.
Before a noun, the phrase becomes a description and is written with hyphens, without from: a rags-to-riches story, a rags-to-riches tale. The journey can also go the other way, from wealth to poverty: riches to rags. The singer's life went from riches to rags in just two years.
Your turn
She grew up in a tiny flat with no money and now runs a large company: a real ___ story.
Show the answer
rags-to-riches — She grew up with no money and now runs a large company: that's the road from poverty to wealth, rags-to-riches. Riches-to-rags describes the opposite, losing a fortune, and here it's the other way round.
Write about someone who started with nothing and became successful: someone you know, or a character from a film or book. Say how they started and what they achieved.
The hero of the film starts as a street cleaner and ends up owning a hotel chain, a true rags-to-riches story.
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