Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🕴️ A rich socialite 💎 Fashionable and expensive
tony

tony

1 7.7
Fashionable and expensive in style, often describing places or people
  • adjective
  • /ˈtoʊni/
translation icon : elegante
  • I know academics who would as soon march naked in a Fourth of July parade as own reproductions of art—unless, of course, the reproduction is on a poster for an exhibition at a sufficiently tony and remote museum.

Loudoun County, Virginia, is this sort of Tony suburb outside of in Virginia.

Examples

  • The boutique sold a selection of tony clothing that captured the latest fashion trends.

  • That's tony.

    The Little Vampire (2000)

  • Anyone who had to labor for a living didn't have a prayer of an early morning workout at the infinitely tonier Aspen Meadow Athletic Club, which didn't even open its doors until ten.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • They moved into a tony neighborhood known for its stylish homes and trendy shops.

  • At the gala, everyone appreciated the tony decor and the luxurious atmosphere.

Synonyms

swank
vstony
4 7.7

Fashionable and showy in a way that seems rich

emphasizes costly appearance and reputation rather than showy elegance
nobby
vstony
  • UK
8.6

Stylish in a way that shows wealth or upper class

focuses on being expensive and fashionable rather than class marker
chichi
vstony
9.9

Stylish but showy in a way that tries to impress others

means genuinely fashionable and costly rather than merely affected style
rah
vstony
  • Slang
9.9

Like rich young people who wear smart, expensive clothes

is broader, describing general fashionable expensive appearance not only that group

Antonyms

cheap
∞ 1.0

Costing little money compared with similar things

unfashionable
8 3.7

Few people wear it now because it is not in style

How Fashionable

tony
1 7.7
elegant
39 3.4
stylish
85 2.0
fashionable
85 2.6
smart
127 2.4

Surface Forms

tony positive
tonier comparative
toniest superlative

Morphology

tony = ton (opaque) = ton + y

Although formed by the suffix '-y' on the base 'ton' (the ton = fashionable society), the base 'ton' is not familiar to most learners, so the meaning 'fashionable' cannot be reliably derived by an average B1 learner.

Etymology

Tony comes from French ton, used in the phrase 'le bon ton' meaning 'good style' or 'good manners'. So to be tony is to be 'in good style', which is why the word means fashionable and expensive.