The free dictionary provides two definitions for "rich with" and "rich in".
- rich with: having a lot of something; abundant in something
- rich in: having valuable resources, characteristics, traditions, or history
It seems like the differences between the two definitions is rather subtle. My understanding is the following. The former case means that an object contains a lot of something (and we don't know anything about the quality of this something). The latter means that the object contains something which is valuable (and we don't know how many instances of this something our object contains).
Is this observation correct? Can someone clarify the difference and provide some further references?
The context of this questions is that I want to write something like "The literature is rich in/with examples".
Best Answer
Rich with does, I suggest, say something about the quality of something, and that quality is almost always positive.
The above sentence uses the word rich in a positive way, and doing so would seem to be the norm. I would not link the words rich with with negative things.
Maybe I betray a certain cultural bias in linking rich to only positive things, as if to be rich is necessarily a good thing. On the other hand, if irony is the reason for the link between rich with and the negative things, then the linkage would make sense, and to be rich is not necessarily a good thing. For example, if the "she," above, has great wealth, but her character leaves little to be desired, I might say ironically,
"Rich in" can be used, I suggest, in many of the same ways its counterpart "rich with" can be used, as in
or
or
In conclusion, "rich in" and "rich with" are virtually interchangeable. As for
I suggest you be guided by whichever word sounds better to you, since they're both, as I said, virtually interchangeable.