sumptuary law

American  

noun

1. a law regulating personal habits that offend the moral or religious beliefs of the community.

2. a law regulating personal expenditures designed to restrain extravagance, especially in food and dress.

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sumptuary law British  

noun

1. (formerly) a law imposing restraint on luxury, esp by limiting personal expenditure or by regulating personal conduct in religious and moral spheres

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Etymology

Origin of sumptuary law

First recorded in 1590–1600

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

sumptuary law

I was opposed to it because I thought there would be great difficulty in its enforcement, it being more or less like a sumptuary law.

From Time Magazine Archive

I mumble thanks for the advice, feeling like I’ve just been stripped naked by the crazed enforcer of some ancient sumptuary law: No chatting for you, girl.

From "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" by Barbara Ehrenreich

So it was well for me to make a note of the date of the "sumptuary law," that I might not some day outrageously overdress a character.

From Life on the Stage by Morris, Clara

I wonder if the great editor ever considered the sumptuary law of the saloon.

From Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures by Bain, George W.

In those days there was a law, known as a sumptuary law, which regulated by statute the clothes that each class of people were privileged to wear.

From Men of Iron by Pyle, Howard