luxe

Etymology

It is borrowed from French luxe (“luxury, sumptuousness, profusion”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from Latin luxus (“excess, extravagance, magnificence”).^[2][3][7][8] Etymonline and Klein take the Latin noun as probably a figurative use of the Latin adjective of the same form, meaning "dislocated",^[3][7] and Chambers also glosses it "a dislocation".^[9] The same noun gave luxuria, the source of luxury.^[3][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Luxury, also used attributively: 1558, in a letter printed in J. A. Froude's History of England.^[2] Etymonline dates the word to the 1550s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) entered luxe as "luxury; voluptuousness", quoting Prior, and in his 1773 edition marked it "not used".^[10] From 1819 the French word was used in English for sumptuous elegance, especially in phrases such as édition de luxe and train de luxe,^[2] the source of deluxe.^[2][11][5] Merriam-Webster dates both the adjective "luxurious, sumptuous" and the noun "luxury, elegance" to 1888.^[11]

Timeline

• 1558 – noun, luxury.^[2]
• 1819 – sumptuous elegance, as a French word in English, in édition de luxe and train de luxe.^[2]
• 1888 – adjective, luxurious, sumptuous.^[11]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Luxurious, sumptuous or expensively stylish: a luxe hotel in the hills.^[11][2]

Noun

1. Luxury or elegance.^{[11][2][4][12]}

Related words

• luxury
• deluxe
• luxate

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
12. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins