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Luxury   Listen
noun
Luxury  n.  (pl. luxuries)  
1.
A free indulgence in costly food, dress, furniture, or anything expensive which gratifies the appetites or tastes. "Riches expose a man to pride and luxury."
2.
Anything which pleases the senses, is not necessary for life, and is also costly, or difficult to obtain; an expensive rarity; as, silks, jewels, and rare fruits are luxuries; in some countries ice is a great luxury. Contrasted to necessity. "He cut the side of a rock for a garden, and, by laying on it earth, furnished out a kind of luxury for a hermit."
3.
Lechery; lust. (Obs.) "Luxury is in wine and drunkenness."
4.
Luxuriance; exuberance. (Obs.)
Synonyms: Voluptuousness; epicurism; effeminacy; sensuality; lasciviousness; dainty; delicacy; gratification.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Luxury" Quotes from Famous Books



... La Jacquerie, was a term which originated in cruel derision. When John of France was a prisoner in England, his kingdom appears to have been desolated by its wretched nobles, who, in the indulgence of their passions, set no limits to their luxury and their extortion. They despoiled their peasantry without mercy, and when these complained, and even reproached this tyrannical nobility with having forsaken their sovereign, they were told that Jacque bon homme must pay for all. But Jack good-man ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... various dishes and wait at table. Dinner consisted of several courses, with selected fruit; while in addition to liberal supplies of ale, stout, and mineral waters, 300 bottles of champagne were placed before the honoured guests. This last-mentioned luxury was the generous gift of Messrs. Perrier-Jouet & Co., of Epernay, the famous wine shippers, who kindly and thoughtfully presented this supply of their extra-quality wine through their Irish representatives, Messrs. James McCullagh, Son & Co., 34 Lower Abbey ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring

... riches, luxury, content! For had I not your blood in my veins and were not my desires natural? I became a priest because I could starve no longer without dying. I have seen your true son in the forests, have called him brother, though he did not understand. You ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... night, all the bells of the towne rung, and bonfires made for the joy of the Queene's arrival, who landed at Portsmouth last night. But I do not see much true joy, but only an indifferent one, in the hearts of the people, who are much discontented at the pride and luxury of the Court, and running ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... Wealth a gorgeous train display'd. (And Fancy soon espied him,) Supine, in splendid garb array'd, With Luxury beside him; He dwelt beneath a lofty dome, Which Pride and Pleasure ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 273, September 15, 1827 • Various

... note what is shameful in the undertaking, and shameful in the result, which you may avoid. But either a fond partiality for the task I have undertaken deceives me, or there never was any state either greater, or more moral, or richer in good examples, nor one into which luxury and avarice made their entrance so late, and where poverty and frugality were so much and so long honoured; so that the less wealth there was, the less desire was there. Of late, riches have introduced avarice, and excessive pleasures a longing for them, amidst ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... intrenched within the dignity of a gentleman, and examined askance the figure of old Lindau as he stared about the room, with his fine head up, and his empty sleeve dangling over his wrist. March felt obliged to him for wearing a new coat in the midst of that hostile luxury, and he was glad to see Dryfoos make up to him and begin to talk with him, as if he wished to show him particular respect, though it might have been because he was less afraid of him than of the others. He heard Lindau saying, "Boat, the name is Choarman?" ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... which already showed signs of being flooded; they therefore proceeded in a body up stairs, and what was their delight to find a most comfortable room, neatly furnished with chairs, and a table; but, above all, a large old-fashioned bed, an object of such luxury as only an old campaigner can duly appreciate. The curtains were closely tucked in all round, and, in their fleeting and hurried glance, they felt no inclination to disturb them, and rather proceeded ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)

... Q. Caec." i. 3: "They said that whatever luxury could accomplish in the way of vice,... avarice in the way of plunder, or arrogance in the way of insult, had all been borne by them for the last three years, while this one man ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... O' course they can ride—we pay enough for 'aving 'em taught, don't we? But you mark my words, the People won't put up with this state of things much longer—keepin' a set of 'ired murderers in luxury and hidleness. I tell yer, wherever I come across one of these great lanky louts strutting about in his red coat, as if he was one of the lords of the hearth, well—it makes my nose ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 5, 1890 • Various

... God, dost disprove, check, and convict them; as when, both wills being bad, one deliberates whether he should kill a man by poison or by the sword; whether he should seize this or that estate of another's, when he cannot both; whether he should purchase pleasure by luxury, or keep his money by covetousness; whether he go to the circus or the theatre, if both be open on one day; or thirdly, to rob another's house, if he have the opportunity; or, fourthly, to commit ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine

... never let one of his pictures go for less than twenty, thirty, forty thousand francs. Orders would have fallen on the painter's shoulders as thick as hail, if he had not affected the disdain, the weariness of the man whose slightest sketches are fought for. And yet all this display of luxury smacked of indebtedness, there was only so much paid on account to the upholsterers; all the money—the money won by lucky strokes as on 'Change—slipped through the artist's fingers, and was spent without trace of ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... old country the secret of obtaining luxury and economy combined in building has been learned, and rich and poor, fashionable and unfashionable alike live in "flats." In America, people have not yet learned this lesson, but cling to the old and barbarous custom of living perpendicularly in isolated ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various

... Naturally a retired and simple man, he had shown no particular sense of being ruined at the time when that calamity fell upon him, further than that he left off washing himself when the shock was announced, and never took to that luxury any more. He had been a very indifferent musical amateur in his better days; and when he fell with his brother, resorted for support to playing a clarionet as dirty as himself in a small Theatre Orchestra. It was the theatre in which his niece became a dancer; ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... great deal from the comparative indistinction of the easy and the not so easy in these ranks. A workman or a pedlar cannot shutter himself off from his less comfortable neighbours. If he treats himself to a luxury he must do it in the face of a dozen who cannot. And what should more directly lead to charitable thoughts?.... Thus the poor man, camping out in life, sees it as it is, and knows that every mouthful he puts in his belly has been ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... he heard of her, does not matter. She was a good girl and handsome, and, in her way, very clever and shrewd; though, of course, a little hard. It is to be remembered that Phil was living very comfortably, denying himself no small luxury, never putting by an anna, very satisfied with himself and his good intentions, was dropping all his English correspondents one by one, and beginning more and more to look upon this land as his home. Some men fall ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... all men. But are they so in the present constitution of society, under a bad government, where most have had no education at all, but have been debased, brutified, by a long train and mixture of superstition and oppression, and witnesses to the luxury and vices of their superiors, which they could only envy and not enjoy? It was turning tigers loose; and the degradation of the nobility pointed out the prey. Could it be expected that savages so hallooed on to outrage and void of any notions of reciprocal"duties ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... bitterness to his present distress. He now tormented himself with remorse at having neglected my mother's advice; which would at least have saved him from the additional burden of debt—he vainly reproached himself for having brought her from the dignity, the ease, the luxury of her former station to toil with him through the cares and toils of poverty. It was gall and wormwood to his soul to see that splendid, highly- accomplished woman, once so courted and admired, transformed into an active managing housewife, with hands and head continually occupied ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte

... image of a great personage or a splendid pageant of the past with the same affluence, the same rich vitality, that floods and warms the vast areas of canvas over which the full-fed genius of Rubens disported itself in the luxury of imaginative creation. ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... happy for many a long year after they would have entered into the kingdom of Heaven if they had been poor. I want to live long and to raise my children, if I see they would be happier for the raising; that is what I want, and it is not what I am doing now that will help me. Being a gentleman is a luxury which I cannot afford, therefore I do not want it. Let me go back to my shop again, and do things for people which they want done and will pay me for doing for them. They know what they want and what is good for them better than ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... a pleasant luxury in waking in a large room, with a maid pulling up the blinds, and reporting that the day promised to be grand. The maid could be looked upon as a friend, in that she knew the best and the worst concerning Miss Higham's clothes, ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge

... that he is not merely turning out a product, but turning out a well-made or a beautiful one, to which his own skill is contributing. The makers of fine books or bindings or furniture, of fine embroidery and the like, are examples. But such conditions occur chiefly in the so-called luxury trades. There is very little opportunity for the display of creative ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... I was right, and I patted Sallie Cox on the head for being so clever—so clever as not to care, chiefly. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, you cannot do with a man who loves you, if you don't care a speck for him. And the luxury of perfect indifference! Emotions are awfully wearing, Ruth. I wonder that these emotional women like Rachel get on at all. I should think they would die of the strain. Men are always deadly afraid of such women. I believe Payson wouldn't stop running ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell

... the hippodrome; and this memorable day seemed to avenge the injuries of Genseric, and to expiate the shame of the Romans. The wealth of nations was displayed, the trophies of martial or effeminate luxury; rich armor, golden thrones, and the chariots of state which had been used by the Vandal queen; the massy furniture of the royal banquet, the splendor of precious stones, the elegant forms of statues and vases, the more substantial treasure of gold, and the holy vessels ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... voke envy, but it will also attract respect. When error confronts you, withhold not the rebuke or the explana- tion which destroys error. Never breathe an immoral 452:15 atmosphere, unless in the attempt to purify it. Better is the frugal intellectual repast with contentment and virtue, than the luxury of learning with ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... with others is on the very ground of honor. A wife led from affluence to frigid penury and neglect; from leisure and luxury to toil and want; daughters, once courted as rich, to be disesteemed when poor,—this is the gloomy prospect, seen through a magic haze of despondency. Honor, love and generosity, strangely bewitched, plead for dishonesty as the only alternative to such ...
— Twelve Causes of Dishonesty • Henry Ward Beecher

... Lincoln's stories, like Captain Bunsby's opinion, 'lays in the application on it.' They always and exactly suited the occasion and the object, and none to which I ever listened seemed far-fetched or pointless. I will attempt to repeat one of them. If I have an especial fondness for any particular luxury, it manifests itself in a remarkable way when properly made December sausages are placed before me. While at breakfast, Judge Davis, noticing that, after having been bountifully served with sausage, like ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... same time, remember that social enjoyments should always be a secondary consideration to the actor, something of a luxury to be sparingly indulged in. An actor should never let himself be beguiled into the belief that society, generally speaking, is seriously interested in what he does, or that popularity in drawing-rooms connotes success in the theatre. It ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles

... "Ah! sweet memories, treasures of the past, why are you so dim and wavering, and this hard world so clear and glaring it seems cut out of stone? Oh, if I had a fairy's wand, I'd say, 'Vanish fine house and servants—vanish wealth and luxury and strife; and you come back to me, sweet hours of peace—and ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade

... a shot from one of the guards awakened every man within hearing, and soon they romped and scampered down to the river's edge to indulge in the luxury of a morning plunge. After an hour's horseplay they trooped back to the cabin and soon had breakfast ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford

... for boys and women, but little of solid meat for men. All this proceeded not from any want of knowledge, but of judgment, neither did he want that in discerning the beauties and faults of other poets, but only indulg'd himself in the luxury of writing, and perhaps knew it was a fault, but hop'd the reader would not find it. For this reason, tho' he must always be thought a great poet he is no longer esteem'd a good writer, and for ten impressions, which his works ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... slaves, of whom many were inspired and prophesied. When one of these men exhibited more than usual symptoms of inspiration or insanity, and wandered solitary up and down the woods, like the Gond in the jungle, the high priest had him bound with a sacred chain and maintained him in luxury for a year. At the end of the year he was anointed with unguents and led forth to be sacrificed. A man whose business it was to slay these human victims and to whom practice had given dexterity, advanced from the crowd ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... the most extreme of individualists, the most unscrupulous of self-asserters, the pampered darling of every kind of sophisticated luxury, should thus lift up his voice on behalf of the wage-earners, is an indication that a state of society which seems proper and inevitable to dull and narrow minds is, when confronted, not with any mere abstract ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys

... many other Agnostics, believe that faith, in this sense, is an abomination; and though we do not indulge in the luxury of self-righteousness so far as to call those who are not of our way of thinking hard names, we do feel that the disagreement between ourselves and those who hold this doctrine is even more moral than intellectual. It is desirable there should be an end of any mistakes on this topic. If our clerical ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley

... disposition, quickly fell into the ways of the trio, and rather enjoyed the luxury of now and then getting a rise out of the undergrads by showing that "he knew ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed

... liberty, 'My lord, I have four small children that cannot help themselves, of which one is blind, and have nothing to live upon but the charity of good people.' How inscrutable are the ways of Providence; the rich reveling in luxury while using their wealth to corrupt mankind, while this eminent saint, with his family, were dependent upon charity! As soon as he could get his tools in order he set to work; and we have the following testimony to his industry by a fellow-prisoner, Mr. Wilson, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... not be our case: my fortune is independent and ample,—equal to luxury and splendid folly. I have a right to choose ...
— The Man Of The World (1792) • Charles Macklin

... to see a porcelain bathtub again," yawned Jennie, breaking in. "I don't really feel as though a sponge-down in an icy cold brook with a tarpaulin around one for a bath-house is altogether the height of luxury." ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson

... and happy in the luxury provided. She is very sweet and docile with us all—and we are careful not to irritate her or to have anything intrude which might excite or cause the slightest shock ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... the colonel to show his ingenuity in getting over dry shod, and so sparing his threatening rheumatism—the cry of "Sausipata!" was uttered by Pepe Garcia. Two neat mud cabins, each provided with a door furnished with the unusual luxury of a wooden latch, marked the plantation of Sausipata. The situation was level, and within the enclosing walls of the forest could be seen a plantation of bananas, a field of sugar-cane, with groves ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various

... upon the rich man's table loaded with every imaginable luxury. Does that mere sight relieve the pangs of hunger? It certainly does not. It rather adds to his wretchedness, by intensifying his hunger, without satisfying its cravings. Even so would it be in heaven, could we suppose a soul admitted there, and allowed to gaze upon the beauty of God, while she ...
— The Happiness of Heaven - By a Father of the Society of Jesus • F. J. Boudreaux

... respects himself, he must be respected—and that the air and the earth have the inspiration and the stimulus of freedom. The Chinese and Japanese are famous as servants—so constant, handy, obedient, docile, so fitted to minister to luxury, to wait upon those favored by fortune and spurred to execute the schemes for elevation and dominance, and find employment in the enterprise that comprehends human advancement. It must be admitted that the Filipinos are not admirable in menial service. Many of them are untamed, and now, ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... had half frightened him, and had always left a lurking sensitiveness that he was unfairly favored, by some mere accident, above his less lucky companions. The rude vices of his old associates had made him impatient of the feebler sensual indulgences of the later companions of his luxury, and exposed their hollow fascinations; his sensitive fastidiousness kept him clean among vulgar temptations; his clear perceptions were never blinded by selfish sophistry. Meantime his feeling for Susy remained unchanged. ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte

... of the coarsest kind, we carried him as often as possible a warm supper, accompanied with some little luxury for the jailer. ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)

... be a bishop some day or other, perhaps, and we can get her spliced to one of our young officers." This remark had induced the sailor of the Molly to ask if a sloop-of-war really carried such a piece of marine luxury as a chaplain, and the explanation given went to say that the clergyman in question did not properly belong to the Poughkeepsie, but was to be put on board a frigate, as soon as they fell in with one that he named. Now, all this Mulford overheard, and ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... usually fell to the kings, but also over the policy of the state at home. On the increase and maintenance of that real power, his chief thoughts were concentrated; new dispositions generated by kingship, which had never shown themselves in him before. Despising, like Lysander, both money, luxury, and all the outward show of power, he exhibited, as a king, an ultra-Spartan simplicity, carried almost to affectation in diet, clothing, and general habits. But like Lysander, also, he delighted in the exercise of dominion through the medium of knots or factions of devoted partizans, whom he ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... roast lobsters alive; to cause a poor pig to be whipt to death; to scrape carp the contrary way of the scales, making them leap in the stew-pan, and dressing them in their own blood for sauce. And this for luxury-sake, and to provoke an appetite; which I had without stimulation, in my way, and that I can tell thee a ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... had overcome the difficulties of their infant commonwealth; and, as they still retained their vigour and industry, from rich grew continually richer, and from powerful more powerful. They extended their traffick, and had not yet admitted luxury; so that they had the means and the will to accumulate wealth, without any incitement to spend it. The French, who wanted nothing to make them powerful, but a prudent regulation of their revenues, and a proper use of their ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... superior in plan and workmanship to that of the average homesteader, faced the west. It was built of new spruce logs, with well-filled chinks, and boasted two large windows and a porch, in addition to its necessary door. Moreover, an outside stone chimney betokened a fire-place—an untold luxury to a homesteader. A second wire fence, set at some three rods from the cabin, inclosed it on all sides, and protected a small vegetable garden and a few fruit trees, which the ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase

... Hudson served to mark our speed. There were great saloons, lovely awnings under which to read or lounge, promenade decks. And there was a gay and well-behaved crowd of passengers.... At dinner we were seated at long tables, and served with every luxury. And the whole journey cost me ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters

... in him, and the decadent pursuit of culture as a mere luxury had no stronger enemy. Intellectual activity, apart from moral purpose, was anathema to Acton. He has been censured for bidding the student of his hundred best books to steel his mind against the charm of literary beauty and style. ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... itself May the 26th, as you perceive by the date; but I am writing to you by the fire-side, instead of going to Vauxhall. If we have one warm day in seven, "we bless our stars, and think it luxury." And yet we have as much water-works and fresco diversions, as if we lay ten degrees nearer warmth. Two nights ago Ranelagh-gardens were opened at Chelsea; the Prince, Princess, Duke, much nobility, and much mob besides, were there. There is a vast amphitheatre, finely ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole

... face, I may almost say rapture. Then there was a certain church-bookseller's shop in the town, which had manifold attractions for us. Every parochial want that print and paper could supply was there met, with a convenience that bordered on luxury. There was a good store, too, of sacred prints, illuminated texts, and oak frames, from which we carried back sundry additions to the garnishing of our room, besides presents for Jack, who was as fond of such things as we were. Parish matters were, naturally, of perennial interest for us ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... it, the snow and whirling winds would not permit. The old gipsy said if they had little food they could not do without fire, and they were compelled to get coke and coal somehow—apologising for such a luxury. There was no whining—not a bit of it; they were evidently quite contented and happy, and the old woman proud of her daughter's hardihood. By-and-by the husband came round with straw beehives to sell, and cane to mend chairs—a ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... life; a rarer sweetness, which she would not have exchanged for Christina's whole draught. She had found jewels more precious at the depth of the sea than ever Christina could pick up in her pleasure sail along shore. Christina, with all her luxury, was missing something, and in danger of losing ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... full extent; he need only walk about in a pelting shower for some hours without an Umbrella, or when the weight of a cloak would be insupportable, and at the same time remember that seventy years ago a luxury he can now purchase in almost every street, was within the reach of but very few, while omnibuses ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster

... a rarity intemperance abounds. A newly liberated people may be compared to a Northern army encamped on the Rhine or the Xeres. It is said that when soldiers in such a situation find themselves able to indulge without restraint in such a rare and expensive luxury, nothing is to be seen but intoxication. Soon, however, plenty teaches discretion; and, after wine has been for a few months their daily fare, they become more temperate than they had ever been in their own country. In the same manner, the final and permanent fruits of liberty are ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord

... luxury in the Caribbean, but white men who have lived any time in the tropics prefer it warm, and Dick saw why the passengers had chosen the port alleyway. He decided to take the other, since Kenwardine would then be on the opposite ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss

... brethren, and were it not convenient for Brother Marshman's accusers to make a stepping-stone of me, I have no doubt but my collection of plants, aviary, and museum, would be equally impeached as articles of luxury and lawless expenses; though, except the garden, the whole of these expenses are borne ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... the loving thoughts that start Into being are like perfume from the blossom of the heart; And to dream the old dreams over is a luxury divine— When my truant fancy wanders with that old ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley

... simplicity. His father, who rode the hobby-horse of frugal and severe training to an extent that might have proved disastrous to his son Michel, had not the boy been singularly well endowed by nature to correspond to his parent's wishes, had nurtured him in the scorn of luxury by methods which would be considered very crotchety nowadays. But this could not have been 'my chamber' in which King Henry of Navarre slept, in 1584, when he paid a visit to Montaigne at his fortified house. There was a better one in that part of the building which has disappeared. Montaigne ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... had brought away some of the red sunshine of the last year's summer. The Widow shall have the credit of her well-ordered tea-table, also of her bountiful cream-pitchers; for it is well known that city-people find cream a very scarce luxury in a good many country-houses of more pretensions than Hyacinth Cottage. There are no better maims for ladies who give ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... government has interfered with the originality of the people. "The genius of their government seems to forbid any exercise of ingenuity in producing articles for the gratification of wealth and luxury. Sumptuary laws rigidly enforce the forms, colors, material, and time of changing the dress of all. As to luxury of furniture, the thing is unknown in Japan.... It would be an endless task to attempt to put down all the acts of a Japanese that are ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick

... boy, a child not yet fourteen! It is early morning in November at Ecclefechan—and Edinburgh with its famous University is a hundred miles away. The father and mother have risen early to get Thomas ready—not for the cab to take him to the "purple luxury and plush repose" of the Pullman on the Limited Express. No, Tom is going to walk,—his only companion a boy two or three years older. These rugged, poor, and godly parents had long discussed the sending of Tommy to the great University. James Bell, one of the wise men of the community, ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... knows where to put it off for a dinner, and quarter himself upon it until he has eaten it out; and by this means he drives a trade, by retrieving the first news to truck it for the first meat in season, and, like the old Roman luxury, ransacks all seas and lands to please his palate; for he imports his narratives from all parts within the geography of a diurnal, and eats as well upon the Russ and Polander as the English and Dutch. By this means his belly is provided ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... wise to despise, out of reach. But he had noticed in one corner a few half-charred fragments of wood, damp indeed, but such as might be kindled by coaxing. He would preserve the deed for the purpose of kindling the wood; and the fire, as his only luxury, he would postpone until he needed it more sorely. In the end the table and the chairs—or all but one—should eke out his fuel, and he would sleep. But ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman

... factory. Experiments in beet cultivation have shown excellent beets may be raised there. Special advantages are offered by the Russian government, and factories are to be exempt from taxation daring a period of ten years. Sugar in Siberia is now considered an article of luxury, owing to distance and difficulties of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 832, December 12, 1891 • Various

... bath," he whispered to himself as he twisted the towel about his hips, "and a great luxury in ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell

... thirty years, owing its introduction to Raleigh. At first merely amused by the New World rarity, England was now by general use turning a luxury into a necessity. More and more she received through Dutch and Spanish ships tobacco from the Indies. Among the English adventurers to Virginia some already knew the uses of the weed; others soon learned from the Indians. Tobacco ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston

... to himself, "I have set you too great a task, my poor Christopher, for you are but a boy." He laid his hand on Chris's arm. "You are a boy, but what lies before you is a man's task, and no mistake. You cannot in the future allow yourself the luxury of such childish enjoyments as a laugh at Claggett Chew, ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson

... private citizen as well as emperor or prince, has it within his power, if he be possessed of the blood craze, to kill scores and hundreds of every kind of game. By the facilities of rapid travel the hunter, with the least possible sacrifice of time, is transported with whatever of luxury a Pullman car can confer (luxury to him who likes it) to the haunts and almost within the very sanctuaries of game. Where formerly an expedition of months was required, now in a few days' time he is carried ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various

... prolonged, in endless perspective, the long tables flanked by pivot-seats covered with red velvet. It was fit, indeed, to be the vast floating cosmopolitan dining hall, where the rich natives of two continents might eat in common. Its magnificent luxury was that of great hotels, and theaters, and public rooms; the imposing and commonplace luxury which appeals to the ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant

... destroy the false Lester Crope" or something like that. You mustn't say "rou." You mustn't say: "I don't like that rich old rou hanging around you." Better say: "I don't like that rich old sport." And when, in a moment of self-indulgence, a title-writer allowed himself the luxury of writing "In a moment of madness, I wronged a woman," the Censor seems to have turned scarlet and issued the following order: "Substitute for 'wronged' the word 'offended' ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam

... all, let him go to the Filipinas Islands, where he will be surprised to see those remote fields strewn with spacious temples and convents wherein divine worship is celebrated with splendor and pomp; regularity in the streets; ease and even luxury in dress and house; primary schools in all the villages, and the inhabitants very skilful in the art of writing; paved highways disclosed to view; bridges constructed in good architectural style; and the greater portion of the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various

... Since the previous Tuesday morning we had had no fire to warm ourselves by and had been living chiefly on hard-tack, and the comfort and luxury of the Post sitting room, with the hot supper of arctic hare that came in due course, were appreciated. Mr. Ford had gone south with Dr. Milne to Davis Inlet Post and was not expected back for a week, but Mrs. Ford and her ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace

... quantity of specie, yet when this is scattered over so vast an extent of country, and divided among so many millions of people, it becomes almost as a drop thrown into the sea. Most of the money, besides, that enters China is melted down, and converted into articles of luxury or convenience. Few nations are better acquainted with the value of these precious metals than the Chinese; and few, if any, can surpass their ingenuity in drawing out the one into thin leaves, and the other into ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... gullies, very muddy in the rainy season, and terribly dusty in the dry times. Travelers went to the mines in all sorts of ways, some on foot, and some by ox and horse wagons, and if they had plenty of money, and were determined to have luxury and speed at whatever cost, they traveled by stage-coach. An American firm, Cobb & Company, came here in the early days and established lines of stage-coaches, first from Melbourne to the mines, and afterwards all over Australia. Cobb's ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox

... has been secondarily acquired as an adaptation. I believe that life is endowed with a fixed duration, not because it is contrary to its nature to be unlimited, but because the unlimited existence of individuals would be a luxury without any corresponding advantage. The above-mentioned hypothesis upon the origin and necessity of death leads me to believe that the organism did not finally cease to renew the worn-out cell material because ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... exposure to the late violent storm, no sooner found himself a little recruited, and the roads passable, than he prepared to return to his residence in the city. He had, as conductor, a green young Irishman, lately arrived, who felt almost inspired by the unusual luxury, presented for the first time to his view, of a North American snowfall, and petitioned earnestly to accompany his reverence back to the city to enjoy the "glorious sport," as he called it, of a sleigh ride. The ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley

... can anyhow be called fresh—leastways to us it's stale enough; we're that sick of it! I declare to you, miss, I'm clean worn out with havin' patience! An' now there's my sister gone after her husband an' left her girl, brought up in her own way an' every other luxury, an' there she's come on our hands, an' us to take the charge of her! It's a responsibility will be the ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... recital has enlarged one contracted soul, has persuaded one mind to throw aside false prejudices, has taught one child of luxury to look with sympathetic admiration on those who devote themselves so nobly to the public good, has encouraged one bold heart to labor with more exalted zeal in the cause of humanity, this "ower true tale" has not been ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray

... disappears, and decays; many of the great houses become extinct in the wars with France, or in the fierce battles of the Two Roses; the people gain by what the aristocracy lose. The clergy who keep aloof from military conflicts are also torn by internecine quarrels; they live in luxury; abuses publicly pointed out are not reformed; they are an object of envy to the prince and of scorn to the lower classes; they find themselves in the most dangerous situation, and do nothing to escape from it. Of warnings they have no lack; they receive no new endowments; they slumber; at the close ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... Elaine Marshall, speaking in that cheery, matter-of-fact tone, scorning the luxury of self-pity, conquering the temptation to look on herself as an object of sympathy. Peggy regarded her with affectionate admiration, quite unaware how important a factor she herself had been in bringing about ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith

... a luxury, this life of ours," said a tall fellow with a fair moustache belonging to the famous 20th Regiment of the line, which was the first to enter Nancy after the German occupation of ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs

... seen them eager to procure. In the body of the dwarf gum tree are several large worms and grubs, which they speedily divest of antennae, legs, etc. and, to our wonder and disgust, devour. A servant of mine, an European, has often joined them in eating this luxury; and has assured me, that it was sweeter than any marrow he had ever tasted; and the natives themselves appeared to find ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... country gives to the great world of another—of the balls to which they are invited, or the fetes which they grace by their charms—or the privations to which elegant females, nursed in the lap of luxury, are exposed in roughing it amidst the snows of the North or the deserts of the South. We are grateful to the lady travellers for the brilliant and interesting pictures they have given us of capitals and manners,[3] of costume and dress, and of many eminent men and women, whom their rank ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... modern writer:—"the condition most favourable to population is that of a laborious, frugal people ministering to the demands of opulent neighbours; because this situation, while it leaves them every advantage of luxury, exempts them from the evils which accompany its admission into a country. Of the different kinds of luxury, those are the most innocent which afford employment to the greatest number of artists and manufacturers; or those in which ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 565 - Vol. 20, No. 565., Saturday, September 8, 1832 • Various

... enslaved natives, laboring in the mines for the aggrandizement and enrichment of Spain, and giving up their lives in the work, unrecognized and forgotten, while their exploiters, the children and relatives of Ferdinand and Isabella, sat back in luxury and self-satisfaction. We wondered as to what was killing our shipmates, ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... companion soon brought the children to our side—good, busy, cheerful, and healthy-looking as ever, and marvellously improved in the matter of equipment Harry had been promoted to a cap, which added the grace of a flourish to his bow; Bessy had added the luxury of a pinafore to her nondescript garments; and both pairs of little feet were advanced to the certain dignity, although somewhat equivocal comfort, ...
— The Ground-Ash • Mary Russell Mitford

... I left him at the door of his old shop (which was such a dingy entrance to all the luxury of the interior of the place), and I think we were loth to part, it was agreed between us that, should I remain in the town, we were to meet again. As I walked down the little pave street something I couldn't ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips

... hurrying out to the platform now, where the great train, a blaze of light and luxury, was standing upon the track. Captain Downs made his way to where the Pullman conductor was standing and engaged him in a brief but earnest conversation. A car porter was summoned, and in a few moments Crawshay and Hobson found themselves standing on the steps of one of the cars. They ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... Grannie's one luxury was a good fire. A fire, she used to say, gave you three things in one—warmth, and light, and company. Usually she burnt coal, but when the peats, which had been cut and dried on the moors in June, were brought down to the farms on sledges, her ...
— More Tales of the Ridings • Frederic Moorman

... hast seen and well considered the fate that awaits thee. This prison is no place for trifling. Prisoners ten thousand times more distinguished than thou have died within these walls, and their fate has never been known. But for thee is reserved a long and lingering death, to which theirs was luxury." ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... few natural resources, and the economy depends heavily on luxury tourism, offshore banking, lobster fishing, and remittances from emigrants. The economy, and especially the tourism sector, suffered a setback in late 1995 due to the effects of Hurricane Luis in September but ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... much, and although they may not, as a rule, be as broad and heavy as Englishmen, that is simply a characteristic of race; the Latin peoples are of slighter build than the Teutonic. As to their food, you know that the Romans, who were certainly judges of good living, considered the snail a great luxury, and I dare say ate frogs too. A gentleman who had made the grand tour told me that he had tasted them in Paris and found them very delicate eating. You may not like the living quite at first, but ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty

... are not distinguished for luxury here. It is a camp lodging, tempered by friendship, but——" And the soldier shot a deep glance at the man of law—"I have done no one wrong, I have never turned my back on anybody, and ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac

... is hard to leave this wonderful land," said Heideck seriously. "It is hard to take leave for ever of this brilliant sun, this glittering sea, and these mighty works of men's hands, which have introduced luxury and the comforts of a refined civilisation into a natural paradise. I have never understood Mr. Kennedy's sorrow better than at this moment. And I can sympathise with the feeling of bitterness which makes him shut himself up in his room, to ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann

... care, and made no attempt at speed. Indeed, such a thing was utterly out of the question, with that rough road to follow and the necessity of keeping a constant vigilant outlook, lest they collide with some tree. When the quarry was in full operation automobiles were an unknown luxury; and certainly no provision had ever been made for such a contraption passing along that crooked trail, with its numerous sharp curves intended to avoid natural obstacles. Three separate times already had Hugh brought ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson

... hydrophobia. Whatever the inside of the platter may be, the outside is far from clean. They walk by day and they sleep by night in the same old snuffy robe, which is not kept from contact with the skin by any luxury of linen, until it is worn out. Dirt and piety seem to them synonymous. Sometimes I have deemed, foolishly perhaps, but after the manner of my nation, that their goodness would not wash off with the soil of the skin,—that it was more than skin-deep; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... office) of an Illustrious Count of the Domestics[448], and enjoy that greatest luxury of worthy minds—power to attend ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... wondered if even such an income as eight hundred a year could suffice for it all. In a moment when I was considering this, a truly frightful suspicion crossed my mind. Did these mysterious absences, taken in connection with the unbridled luxury that surrounded us, mean that my son-in-law was a gamester? a shameless shuffler of cards, or a debauched bettor on horses? While I was still completely overcome by my own previsions of evil, my daughter put her arm in mine to take me to ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins



Words linked to "Luxury" :   wealthiness, opulence, luxuriate, luxury liner, sumptuousness, lap of luxury, indulgence, expensiveness, sumptuosity, luxurious, wealth, lavishness, express luxury liner, self-indulgence, luxuriousness



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