adjective
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having or characterized by robust health
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strong or invigorating
a lusty brew
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lustful
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of lusty
Middle English word dating back to 1175–1225; see origin at lust, -y 1
Explanation
Someone who's lusty is healthy and passionate. A lusty young farm worker is strong and energetic, tackling each new challenge enthusiastically. You can be lusty in love, yearning for or infatuated with another person. You can also be lusty for life, filled with great strength and eager to live each day to the fullest. As time has gone by, lust and lusty have gained the "full of desire" meaning and lost some of the thirteenth century "joyful" sense of the words.
Vocabulary lists containing lusty
"Of Plymouth Plantation," Vocabulary from the historical account
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"The Tempest," Vocabulary from Acts 1 and 2
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Fans who had previously been happy cheering wins with lusty renditions of “Sweet Caroline” don’t mind that it has been shoved aside.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 11, 2026
A few lusty blows from Shepherd, Matthew Forde and debutant Terrance Hinds got West Indies beyond 150 but, with Buttler in such fine form, England made light work of knocking off the runs.
From BBC ● Nov. 10, 2024
By the end of the two-hour hike that evening, three lusty male tarantulas had been spotted.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 12, 2023
The actress Lilith Stangenberg launches into a lusty monologue about her love for the sea and sand.
From New York Times ● Apr. 24, 2023
There seemed to be no hour of daylight when she was not marching to and fro between the washtub and the line, alternately gagging herself with clothes pegs and breaking forth into lusty song.
From "1984" by George Orwell
Its cuisine is arguably less sophisticated than Provence’s, and yet it is more firmly rooted in the land it sprang from, and it is, I put to you, enjoyed with lustier abandon.
From New York Times ● Mar. 15, 2017
Heartthrob invokes somber, marble notebook dumps as truthfully as it portrays its lustier foil.
From Time ● Feb. 1, 2013
The galleries were unmoved, and stayed that way through the speech of Toledo Blade Editor Grove Patterson nominating Senator Taft, when a lustier demonstration came off.
From Time Magazine Archive
Out of the heart of the Nation, out of Indiana has arisen a new and lustier figure.
From Time Magazine Archive
The Germans sang lustier and more voices came in until they killed the parody even as they had killed “Auld Lang Syne.”
From "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith
A year after the loudest and lustiest of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments was played amid eerie silence and empty seats, the U.S.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 28, 2021
The collection was the achievement of a lifetime of picture-buying by one of Philadelphia's lustiest characters, the late, great corporation lawyer John G. Johnson.
From Time Magazine Archive
Many another superlative can be applied to Trastevere; its poverty is the deepest, its streets and alleyways the most crowded, its feasting the lustiest in all of Rome.
From Time Magazine Archive
Loudest and lustiest of all is the fast-growing Sunday Pictorial, edited by 36-year-old Hugh Cudlipp, younger brother of Editor Percy Cudlipp of Labor's Daily Herald.
From Time Magazine Archive
The raucous screams stopped then, suddenly, and on their very lustiest crest, leaving an echoing gash across silence.
From Humoresque A Laugh on Life with a Tear Behind It by Hurst, Fannie
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
