well off

well offadj

• 1

  Of a person: in fortunate circumstances, especially having financial security, at any level from intermediate (comfortably off) to high (wealthy).

  • Near-synonyms: well-endowed, wealthy; see also Thesaurus:wealthy
  • He is very well off as a result of his stock portfolio containing some big winners over the years.
• 2

  archaicdialectalOf a person or thing: in a good position or circumstance.

  • He would be well off if he would simply quit this place and never look back.
  • When Lord Carhampton's strong measures came into operation, and the people found him act in so arbitrary a manner, there was not, in a fortnight after, almost one shopkeeper in Dublin who was not regularly sworn, and had not taken the oath of the United Irishmen. He was in fact their agent and recruiting sergeant [as it were]. His conduct to the Reverend Mr. Berwick will be best understood by detailing it as I had it from that individual. He was a clergyman of a parish not far from Luttrelstown, where Lord Carhampton resided; and in 1797, two soldiers came to his house, and took prisoner a man in his service, to bring to the General. Mr. Berwick accompanied them. Lord Carhampton knew him, both by name and profession; but he was so insolent and haughty—his manner and voice so arrogant, that Mr. Berwick thought he would be well off if he got safe out of the house. "Well, sir, who are you?—why do you protect this man! Don't you know that he is a rebel?" Berwick replied, he did not; that he had only just come from Longford, and before he went, had known the man to have been a very well-conducted person. "Sir, you must have known it? Where do you live?" "At Esker," Mr. Berwick replied. "Oh! no honest man would live there! Why do you harbour rogues and rebels in your place?" Mr. Berwick said, his profession and station, as chaplain to Lord Moira, should have sufficed, as he thought, to protect him from such an imputation. "Well, sir," replied Carhampton, "you may go!" Berwick now became a marked man; […].