luxury

From Middle English luxurie, from Old French luxurie, from Latin luxuria (“rankness, luxury”), from luxus (“extravagance, luxury”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈlʌk.ʃə.ɹi/

• Audio (UK):

  (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈlʌɡ.ʒə.ɹi/, /ˈlʌk.ʃə.ɹi/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əɹi
• Hyphenation: lux‧u‧ry

luxury (countable and uncountable, plural luxuries)

2. Very wealthy and comfortable surroundings; the state of being that they create.

   Synonyms: luxuriousness, luxe

   Antonyms: austerity, spartanness, penury, poverty

   Near-synonyms: splendor, grandeur, grandness, decadence

4. Something desirable but expensive and that one can live without.

   Antonyms: necessity, essential, essentials, basics

   • 1910, Emerson Hough, “A Lady in Company”, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     “ […] We are engaged in a great work, a treatise on our river fortifications, perhaps? But since when did army officers afford the luxury of amanuenses in this simple republic? […] ”

5. Something that is pleasant and desirable but not necessary in life (whether expensive or not).

   Antonyms: necessity, essential, essentials, basics

   • 2020 December 2, Paul Bigland, “My weirdest and wackiest Rover yet”, in Rail, page 68:

     As the 1857 to Manchester Piccadilly rolls in, I scan the windows and realise there are plenty of spare seats, so I hop aboard. The train is a '221'+'220' combo to allow for social distancing - a luxury on an XC train as normally you're playing sardines, so I make the most of it.

6. (obsolete) Lustfulness; sexual desire or attraction.
   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iv], page 51, column 2:

     Fie on sinnefull phantasie: Fie on Lust, and Luxurie:

7. (obsolete) Copulation; the act or action of sex.
   • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii], page 258, column 1:

     Let not the Royall Bed of Denmark be / A Couch for Luxury and damned Incest.

luxury (comparative more luxury, superlative most luxury)

1. Very expensive.
2. Not essential but desirable and enjoyable and indulgent.
3. (automotive) Pertaining to the top-end market segment for mass production mass market vehicles, above the premium market segment.

(automotive):

• premium
• economy

• luxe
• luxuriant
• luxuriate
• luxurious
• luxuriously

• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “luxury”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “luxury”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

luxury

1. alternative form of luxurie