She always attends events at exclusive clubs, and this obvious social-climbing behavior annoys her friends.

social-climbing 是由 social（社会的）和 climbing（攀爬）组成的复合名词。social 指"社会的、社交的"，climbing 来自动词 climb，意思是"攀爬、攀登"。 social-climbing 字面意思是"在社会阶层中向上攀爬"，引申为"攀附权贵、向上社交"的行为，带有贬义色彩，指通过结交地位更高的人来提升自己的社会地位。