lustful

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English lustful, also lustiful and lostvol,^[2] inherited from Old English lustful (“wishful, desirous”),^[3][4][2] also lustfull,^[5] formed from Old English lust + -ful.^[5][3][6] The OED compares Old Norse lostafullr.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Wishful, eagerly desirous of something: Old English, in the translation of Orosius.^[5][3][4] Dictionary.com dates the word before 900,^[7] while Merriam-Webster Unabridged's first date, for its first sense, is the 14th century.^[8]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English it could also mean delightful or pleasure-loving, as in the Ayenbite of 1340,^[2][5] and Middle English also had lustsome for voluptuous or lustful.^[3] From 1561 it meant vigorous, a sense now given to lusty.^[5][3] The modern sense of immoderate sexual desire appears in 1579, in E. K.'s gloss to Spenser's Shepheardes Calender.^[5][3] From about 1610 the word could also mean provoking lust.^[5] Johnson (1755) gives both of these last senses, with Spenser and Milton as his authorities.^[9] The general sense of eager desire is now obsolete or archaic.^[5][6]

Timeline

• before 900 – wishful, desirous.^[7][5]
• 1340 – delightful, pleasurable (obsolete by 1394).^[5][2]
• 1561 – vigorous, lusty.^[5][3]
• 1579 – full of sexual desire.^[5][3]
• c. 1610 – provocative of lust (obsolete by 1667).^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Full of or driven by lust; lecherous: He gave her a lustful stare.^[10][8][5]
2. (archaic) Having a strong or excessive desire for something, not necessarily sexual.^[5][6][8]
3. (archaic) Vigorous, lusty.^[10][5][6]
4. (obsolete, 1340–1394) Delightful, pleasurable.^[5][6][2]
5. (obsolete, 1610–1667) Provoking lust.^[5][9]

Word family

• lustfully
• lustfulness
• unlustful

Related words

• lust
• lusty

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Clark Hall, J. R. (1960), A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed., with a supplement by H. D. Meritt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins