extravagance
/ɪkˈstravəɡ(ə)ns
/ /ɛkˈstravəɡ(ə)ns/noun [mass noun]
1Lack of restraint in spending money or using resources: his reckless extravagance with other people’s money...
- Peter Stringer has occasionally been charged with a lack of extravagance behind the scrum, but his antennae are never down.
- In reckless extravagance he outdid the prodigals of all times in ingenuity… and set before his guests loaves and meats of gold, declaring that a man ought either to be frugal or be Caesar.
- While always treating James with deference, Cecil urged him to curtail his extravagance and also to restrain his partiality for Scots advisers and companions.
Synonyms
profligacy, lack of thrift, unthriftiness, thriftlessness, improvidence, wastefulness, waste, overspending, prodigality, squandering, lavishness;
immoderation, excess, recklessness, lack of restraint, irresponsibility;
spendthrift behaviour, free-spending ways
1.1 [count noun] A thing on which too much money has been spent or which has used up too many resources: salmon trout is an unnecessary extravagance...
- Until the very end he was famous for extravagances and spent millions on yachts, helicopters, planes and homes around the world, including an $11m apartment in New York whose furnishings are the source of his current tax problems.
- The schools barely have enough money for a fully equipped football team, and they certainly have no money for extravagances like bus yards.
- Lottery money has to be sought, not for luxuries or extravagances, but to maintain parks and public areas.
Synonyms
luxury, indulgence, self-indulgence, comfort, treat, extra, non-essential, frill, refinement
1.2Excessive elaboration: the extravagance of the decor...
- But to get back to the question of a gay sensibility: cliche has us believe that amongst its ingredients are flamboyance, showiness, excess and extravagance.
- They seem to be giant physical manifestations of a kind of extravagance, or excessiveness, a breaking out of boundaries, form, and structure.
- The degree of excess and extravagance seemed over the top in even the most subdued tiki bar.
Synonyms
ornateness, elaborateness, decoration, embellishment, adornment, ornamentation, showiness;
overstatement, ostentation, exaggeration, over-elaborateness
excessiveness, exaggeration, exaggeratedness, unreservedness, outrageousness, immoderation;
preposterousness, absurdity, irrationality, recklessness, wildness;
excess, overkill, lack of restraint/reserve
Derivatives
extravagancy
/ /ɛkˈstravəɡ(ə)nsi / noun ...- Looking back at it, I realize clearly that in my circumstances this has been criminal extravagancy.
- It was only occasionally that she would experience their extravagancy and that was only when she was in the rare presence of her globetrotting father.
- They could not enjoy such extravagancies while their people were starving in their oil rich homeland.
Origin
Mid 17th century: from French, from medieval Latin extravagant- 'diverging greatly', from the verb extravagari (see extravagant).