Etymologically
Log in

lust

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 24 October 2026 at 18:44. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English lust, inherited from Old English lust (“desire, appetite; pleasure”),[2][3][4] from Proto-Germanic *lustuz.[2][5][6] Its cognates are Old Saxon lust, Old Frisian lust, Dutch lust, German Lust, Old Norse losti and lyst, and Gothic 𐌻𐌿𐍃𐍄𐌿𐍃 (lustus, “pleasure, desire”).[2][3][5][7] Etymonline derives the Germanic noun from Proto-Indo-European *las- (“to be eager, wanton”), the source of Latin lascīvus (“wanton, playful”) and so of lascivious.[2][7] Kroonen notes that this comparison, which also takes in Ancient Greek λιλαίομαι (lilaíomai, “to desire, long for”), needs an awkward zero grade, and suggests instead that the noun came from Proto-Germanic *leusaną (“to lose, be empty”), through "idle" and "frivolous" to "lustful".[5] The archaic verb list, to desire, and so listless, come from the same Germanic source.[8][4][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Pleasure or delight, and also desire or appetite for something: recorded in Old English, in King Alfred's translation of Boethius and the Old English Bede.[10] Barnhart dates it before 725.[3] Old English already used it, in religious writing, for sensuous desire seen as sinful, and for sexual desire.[10]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word could still mean any source of pleasure or delight, an appetite, a liking for a person, or the vigour and fertility of soil.[2][10] The narrowing to sinful sexual desire, now the main meaning, came from its use in Bible translations, as in lusts of the flesh for Latin concupiscentia carnis (1 John 2:16);[2][9] the cognates in the other Germanic languages mostly still mean simply "pleasure".[2][9] Trench (1859) cites Chaucer, "Of prikyng and of huntyng for the hare Was al his lust", and Coverdale's "the Lord had lust unto you", both in the old neutral sense.[11] The older senses of pleasure and desire died out in the 17th century,[10] and Johnson (1755) gave "carnal desire" first.[12] From 1679, in Dryden, it was also used of a lawless, passionate desire for some object.[10] The verb, from about 1200, first meant to wish or desire, and also to please or delight, replacing the Old English verb lystan;[2][10] the sense of intense, especially sexual, desire (lust after) comes from Tyndale's Bible translation of 1526.[10][2]

Timeline

  • before 725 – Old English lust, desire, pleasure.[3]
  • Old English – sinful sensuous desire; sexual desire.[10]
  • c. 1200 – verb, to wish, to desire eagerly.[2]
  • c. 1230 – verb, to please, delight (obsolete).[10]
  • 1390 – a source of pleasure, in Gower.[10]
  • 1398 – vigour; fertility of soil (obsolete by 1682).[10]
  • 1526 – verb, to feel sexual desire, in Tyndale's Bible.[10]
  • 1530 – verb, to have a strong or excessive desire.[10]
  • 1679 – passionate desire for some object.[10]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. Strong sexual desire.
  2. An intense, eager desire for something: a lust for adventure.
  3. (obsolete) Pleasure, delight; a wish or inclination.

Verb

  1. To feel lust; to crave something or someone, often with after or for: He lusted after his neighbour's car.

Word family

  • bloodlust
  • lustful
  • lustihood
  • lusty
  • wanderlust
  • lascivious
  • listless

Usage notes

In East Anglian, Sussex and Hampshire dialect lust also meant to lean over to one side, as of a wall or a stack, and a lean, a "list".[13]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  6. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  8. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  9. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
  12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  13. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)