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

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

In the next place, they operate in some cases as a useful, and the only useful, kind of sumptuary law.

From Principles Of Political Economy Abridged with Critical, Bibliographical, and Explanatory Notes, and a Sketch of the History of Political Economy by Mill, John Stuart

A sumptuary law of the sixteenth century, which had never been repealed, enacted that all gondolas must be painted uniformly black.

From Garcia the Centenarian And His Times Being a Memoir of Manuel Garcia's Life and Labours for the Advancement of Music and Science by Mackinlay, M. (Malcolm) Sterling

The Pope threatened a sumptuary law that they should have but one dish at their table: it was the rule of his own order.

From The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 by Johnson, Rossiter