extravagant

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English extravagaunt,^[2][3] in its first, canon-law sense borrowed from Medieval Latin extrāvagāns (“wandering outside or beyond”),^[4][5][3][6] the present participle of extrāvagor,^[5][7][8][9] formed from extrā (“outside”) and vagor (“to wander, roam”).^[5][7][8][6] The wider sense was reinforced in the late 16th century by Middle French extravagant,^[4][3][2] which is recorded in French from the 14th century,^[4] and Italian stravagante and estravagante also had a share in it:^[4][6] the OED's quotations for the English form stravagant, from the Italian, are somewhat earlier than those for the general sense of extravagant.^[4][10] The Latin verb is also the source of vagabond, vagary and vagrant.^[8][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

In canon law, of papal decrees not included in the official collections, the constituciouns extravagaunt: 1387, in Trevisa's translation of Higden's Polychronicon.^[4][3][5]

Semantic evolution

Ayto suggests that the Medieval Latin participle was first used of these uncodified, "stray" decrees.^[8] In the 15th century the English word also meant rambling, irrelevant, or extraordinary and unusual;^[5][3][11] the OED's quotations for "widely divergent; irrelevant" run from 1601 to 1665, and for "strange, unsuitable" from 1650 to 1701.^[4] The literal sense "wandering beyond bounds" is best known from Hamlet (1604), where the ghost is "th' extravagant and erring spirit";^[4][12] Merriam-Webster's Word Histories points out that both adjectives there are used in their literal sense of wandering.^[12][4][13] Johnson (1755) called this "the primogeneal sense, but not now in use".^[13] From the 1590s, probably under French influence, the word meant exceeding the bounds of reason or propriety, excessive or absurd (Shakespeare, 1598);^[5][4] the sense "spending too much, wasteful" is first recorded in Addison's Spectator in 1711, and "exorbitant", of prices, from 1707.^[4][5] Ayto and Word Origins agree that the present senses only became established in the early 18th century.^[8][11]

Timeline

• 1387 – of papal decrees outside the official collections.^[4][3]
• before 1425 – extraordinary, unusual.^[3][5]
• 1598 – excessive, going beyond reason or propriety.^[4]
• 1601 – widely divergent, irrelevant (obsolete by 1665).^[4]
• 1604 – wandering beyond bounds, in Hamlet.^[4][12]
• 1707 – of prices, exorbitant.^[4]
• 1711 – of people, wasteful, spending too much.^[4][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Spending much more money than is sensible or necessary; wasteful, prodigal: an extravagant host.^[14][2][4]
2. Going beyond reasonable limits; excessive or unrestrained: She was embarrassed by his extravagant compliments.^[14][2][4]
3. Costing too much; exorbitant: extravagant fees.^[14][4]
4. Showy and elaborate; ostentatious.^[14][2]
5. (archaic) Wandering, roaming beyond bounds.^[2][4][13]

Word family

• extravagantly
• extravagantness
• extravagancy
• overextravagant
• unextravagant

Related words

• vagabond
• extravagance
• extravaganza
• vagary
• vagrant
• vague
• extravagate
• extra-

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c d e Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins