Meanings
plural sumptuosities
- countableuncountableThe state or quality of being sumptuous; wealth; high price
Macedon may justly be called to witness, who found more cities and sumptuosity in that little kingdom of Porus […] than in all his other travels and undertakings.
1614, Walter Ralegh [i.e., Walter Raleigh], The Historie of the World […], London: […] William Stansby for Walter Burre, […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=1 to 5)1 more example
Sumptuosity and sordidness; revenge, life-weariness, ambition, darkness, putrescence; and, say, in sterling money, three hundred thousand a year,—were this poor Prince once to burst loose from his Court-moorings, to what regions, with what phenomena, might he not sail and drift!
1837, Thomas Carlyle, “The Notables”, in The French Revolution: A History […], volume I (The Bastille), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, book III (The Parliament of Paris), page 71
Synonyms & antonyms
nounthe quality possessed by something that is excessively expensive
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Frenchsomptuosité
- Latinsumptuositas
- Englishsumptuosity
From sumptuo(u)s + -ity, from Latin sumptuositas: compare French somptuosité.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
sumptuosity. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sumptuosity
“sumptuosity.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sumptuosity. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “sumptuosity,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sumptuosity.
Source: sumptuosity on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.