etymology · 1300s–1500s
luxury
Drift #23 · Jun 4, 2026 · abstract
Meaning comparison
Today it means
great comfort and elegance; expensive things
It used to mean (1300s–1500s)
sinful excess; lust; lechery
Etymology
'Luxury' comes from Latin 'luxuria' — excess, extravagance, and specifically lust or lechery. For medieval moralists it was a grave sin. By the 1600s it had generalised to any excessive indulgence, and by the 1800s had shed its moral condemnation almost entirely, coming to mean simply great comfort or expensive pleasure.
The Drift
How the meaning shifted over time
the drift
In Historical Context
The preacher thundered against luxury from the pulpit — the unbridled appetite of flesh that led men from God and into the arms of the Devil.
drift fact
'Luxuriant' kept more of the original sense — it still means extravagantly abundant, as in luxuriant foliage.
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