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
Fresh from four months in federal prison, Navarro arrived on stage to a long and lusty ovation.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 18, 2024
The Warriors survived and a lusty roar went up from their support, That summed it up.
From BBC ● Dec. 8, 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
But soon an off-shore breeze blew to our liking— a canvas-bellying breeze, a lusty shipmate sent by the singing nymph with sunbright hair.
From "The Odyssey" by Homer
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
But aside from its lustier detonations, it is pretty much the same show.
From Time Magazine Archive
The dollar, as everyone knows, has never been lustier abroad,* and Americans are in the mood to spend.
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
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
Air conditioning." says Chemist Arthur Dehon Little's Industrial Bulletin, "is probably the lustiest and liveliest of the present-day infant industries.
From Time Magazine Archive
Frederic Langford's topnotes were the lustiest and Frederic Langford was fairly dithering when he knew that he had won.
From Time Magazine Archive
Laundresses, I have noticed, are in lustiest voice at their tubs, where their arms keep a vigorous rhythm on the scrubbing-board.
From Hints to Pilgrims by Brooks, Charles Stephen
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.
