voluptuary
Americannoun
-
voluptuaries
plural
adjective
noun
adjective
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of voluptuary
First recorded in 1595–1605; from French voluptuaire, from Late Latin voluptuārius, from Latin “pertaining to (sensual) pleasure,” equivalent to volupt(ās) “pleasure, delight” + -ārius adjective suffix; see -ary; for -u- see voluptuous
Explanation
A voluptuary loves the good life — he is a person whose fondest wish might be to lie on a velvet sofa while being fed chocolate cupcakes. Another word for voluptuary is hedonist, someone whose favorite things are comfort and luxury, and whose highest priority is sensual pleasure. A voluptuary might be especially fond of fine clothing, delicious food, and a luxurious home. The Latin root of voluputary is voluptas, which means "pleasure," and that is exactly what a voluptuary is preoccupied with, his or her own pleasure.
Vocabulary lists containing voluptuary
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:
Behind his impassioned rages, his enormous ambition, his gigantic self-confidence, there lay not the indulgent ease of a voluptuary, but the trivial tastes, the conventional domesticity, of the petty-bourgeois.
From The Guardian ● Sep. 5, 2016
Gumprecht Weiss — we learn his name later on — had once been a voluptuary but in middle age now prefers an ascetic, philosophical life.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 21, 2015
Since 1896, Oscar Wilde’s “Salome” has provided opportunities for lush decadence — and who could object? — with its despotic voluptuary King Herod and the petulant title character.
From New York Times ● Jul. 15, 2011
You probably don't picture a notorious voluptuary, a man who just last year was chowing on double burgers right before a conference on obesity.
From Salon ● Dec. 28, 2010
The voluptuary and adventurer responded to the call, and entered the city to be enthroned, alleging that it was his purpose to deliver the young emperor from evil counsellors.
From Women of Early Christianity by Alfred Brittain
Painter Ben Johnson, 60, brings off the neat trick of evoking an almost Rubens fleshiness while adhering to a strict hard-edge technique, and his voluptuaries thrive surprisingly well in their poster environment.
From Time Magazine Archive
Most important, the winged folk held out the prospect of an airy, insubstantial and blissfully frivolous life beyond the reach of the wealthiest voluptuaries.
From Time Magazine Archive
A renaissance of bathrooms and bathing seems to be in progress rivaling the innovations of the most inventive Roman voluptuaries.
From Time Magazine Archive
Unless you blend with it the true and good, your love of beauty will degenerate into the merely sensuous æsthetics, which, at the present day, renders its votaries fastidious, etiolated voluptuaries.
From Vashti or, Until Death Us Do Part by Augusta J. Evans Wilson
Nina but rightly judged him, when she distinguished the aspiring Spaniard from the barbarous and unrelenting voluptuaries of Italy.
From Rienzi, Last of the Roman Tribunes by Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron Lytton
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.
