• luxuriant •
Pronunciation: lug-zhu-ri-ênt • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: 1. Abundant, sumptuous, lush, growing thickly and profusely. 2. Extravagant, excessive. 3. Excessively florid or elaborate, prolix (writing style).
Notes: Today's good adjective is a variant of luxurious but differs significantly in meaning. While luxurious refers to luxury, that which is excessively expensive, serving pleasure and comfort rather than need, luxuriant refers to excess itself. Thick, lush vegetation may be luxuriant but not luxurious. A home may be luxurious but not luxuriant. The noun for this adjective is luxuriance and the adverb, luxuriantly.
In Play: This Good Word is used when thickness or lushness is intended: "When Barry Knoff saw the luxuriant growth of hair on Manley's chest, he knew that he had lost Mary Chase forever." In terms of writing style, today's word refers to wordiness: "Smedley, I find your autobiographical summary for the annual report a bit luxuriant. Could you pare it down to, say, the length of a short story?"
Word History: Today's adjective comes to us, through French, from Latin luxurian(t)s, the present participle of luxuriare "to be luxuriant". This verb is based on luxuria "luxury, extravagance" from luxus which meant "luxury" with a long and "dislocated" with a short one. We cannot be sure whether these are two words or variants of an earlier common ancestor. Luxury is a kind of dislocation from the normal. However, the Greek relative loxos, means "slanting, crosswise", a sense difficult to correlate with luxury.
LUXURIANT
- Dr. Goodword
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LUXURIANT
• The Good Dr. Goodword
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- Grand Panjandrum
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It is interesting to note that lussuria, the modern Italian derivative of Latin «luxuria» refers not so much to luxury, as to sexual debauchery :
Henri
I have often wondered if there does not exist a connexion with English «lechery», but AHD cites Germanic origins for the latter, cf the entry for «lecher» :s. f. desiderio sfrenato di piaceri sessuali; nella teologia cattolica è uno dei sette peccati capitali.
No PIE origin is provided in the AHD entry for luxury.......
[Middle English, from Old French lecheor, from lechier, to lick, to live in debauchery, of Germanic origin; see leigh- in Indo-European roots.]
Henri
曾记否,到中流击水,浪遏飞舟?
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- Grand Panjandrum
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- Great Grand Panjandrum
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I guess only those who could afford luxury had the time for debauchery. . .
//Larry
Who was once given, not at his request, the User ID "lechr" on a computer in college, whilst another student was able to pick his own ID: supr* . . .
//Larry
Who was once given, not at his request, the User ID "lechr" on a computer in college, whilst another student was able to pick his own ID: supr* . . .
Regards//Larry
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee
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