sumptuary
[suhmp-choo-er-ee]
- pertaining to, dealing with, or regulating expense or expenditure.
- intended to regulate personal habits on moral or religious grounds.
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Origin of sumptuary
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for sumptuary
Historical Examples
When it tries to do so by sumptuary legislation, nothing but mischief is invoked.
A Preface to PoliticsWalter Lippmann
The impolicy or inutility of sumptuary laws was not in this age acknowledged.
Memoirs of the Court of Queen ElizabethLucy Aikin
This kind of furniture was prohibited by a sumptuary pragmatic of 1594.
The Arts and Crafts of Older Spain, Volume II (of 3)Leonard Williams
The increase in indirect taxation had been wholly in sumptuary taxes.
The Annual Register 1914Anonymous
And I learned that all the orders, sumptuary and others, had been similarly written and signed.
A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States CapitalJohn Beauchamp Jones
sumptuary
- relating to or controlling expenditure or extravagance
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Word Origin
C17: from Latin sumptuārius concerning expense, from sumptus expense, from sūmere to spend
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for sumptuary
adj.
"pertaining to expense," 1600, from Latin sumptuarius "relating to expenses," from sumptus "expensive" (see sumptuous).
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper