sumptuary

[suhmp-choo-er-ee]

adjective

pertaining to, dealing with, or regulating expense or expenditure.

intended to regulate personal habits on moral or religious grounds.

Origin of sumptuary

1590–1600; < Latin sūmptuārius, equivalent to sūmptu(s) spending, expense (sūm(ere) to take, procure (see consume) + intrusive -p- + -tus suffix of v. action) + -ārius -ary

Can be confusedsumptuary sumptuous

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for sumptuary

Historical Examples of sumptuary

When it tries to do so by sumptuary legislation, nothing but mischief is invoked.
A Preface to Politics
Walter Lippmann
The impolicy or inutility of sumptuary laws was not in this age acknowledged.
Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth
Lucy 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 1914
Anonymous
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 Capital
John Beauchamp Jones

British Dictionary definitions for sumptuary

sumptuary

adjective

relating to or controlling expenditure or extravagance

Word Origin for sumptuary

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 Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for sumptuary

adj.

"pertaining to expense," 1600, from Latin sumptuarius "relating to expenses," from sumptus "expensive" (see sumptuous).