extravagance

Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word extravagance. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word extravagance, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say extravagance in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word extravagance you have here. The definition of the word extravagance will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofextravagance, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French extravagance, from Medieval Latin extra + vagor (“to wander”).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ɪkˈstɹævəɡəns/
  • Hyphenation: ex‧trav‧a‧gance
  • Audio (US):(file)

Noun

extravagance (countable and uncountable, plural extravagances)

  1. Excessive or superfluous expenditure of money.
  2. Prodigality, as of anger, love, expression, imagination, or demands.
    • 1803, Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey:
      The visions of romance were over. Catherine was completely awakened. Henry’s address, short as it had been, had more thoroughly opened her eyes to the extravagance of her late fancies than all their several disappointments had done.
    • 1913, Mrs. Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., , , →OCLC, page 0016:
      A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor; as, again, the arm-chair in which Bunting now sat forward, staring into the dull, small fire. In fact, that arm-chair had been an extravagance of Mrs. Bunting. She had wanted her husband to be comfortable after the day's work was done, and she had paid thirty-seven shillings for the chair.
  3. Something extravagant; something done out of extravagance.
    That luxury car is an extravagance you can't afford.

Synonyms

Antonyms

Translations

French

Pronunciation

Noun

extravagance f (plural extravagances)

  1. extravagance
    • 1837 Louis Viardot, L’Ingénieux Hidalgo Don Quichotte de la Manchefr.Wikisource, translation of El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Chapter I:
      Sa curiosité et son extravagance arrivèrent à ce point qu’il vendit plusieurs arpents de bonnes terres à labourer pour acheter des livres de chevalerie à lire.
      His curiosity and his extravagance came to the point that he sold several arpents of good working land to buy books of chivalry to read.

Further reading

Wikious
Boobota
Sagapedia