The paper analyses Croatian phrasemes that involve the semantic groups of wealth and poverty as opposing phenomena. The aim is to demonstrate, by means of semantic analysis, how the semantic groups of wealth and poverty are described in Croatian phrasemes. Possible explanations for the selected phrasemes’ semantic background, which serves as the basis for the classification of phrasemes into subgroups, are also offered. These subgroups describe the state, cause, and degree of wealth/poverty, the manner in which wealth/poverty manifests itself, the source of wealth, and the manner of acquiring it. The analysis of the selected examples shows that some examples indicate a state of wealth or poverty in their constituent elements, while others exhibit a higher degree of constituent element desemanticisation.

wealth; poverty; phraseme; semantic analysis, Croatian language