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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Sweet and pleasant to taste or smell: a luscious melon. See Synonyms at delicious.
  2. adj. Having strong sensual or sexual appeal; seductive.
  3. adj. Richly appealing to the senses or the mind: a luscious, vivid description.
  4. adj. Archaic Excessively sweet; cloying.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. Very sweet, succulent, or savory; delicious; very pleasant to taste; hence, extremely pleasing to any of the senses or to the mind; enticingly delightful.
  2. Sweet or rich so as to cloy or nauseate; sweet to excess; hence, unctuous; fulsome.

Wiktionary

  1. adj. sweet and pleasant; delicious
  2. adj. sexually appealing; seductive
  3. adj. obscene

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. Sweet; delicious; very grateful to the taste; toothsome; excessively sweet or rich.
  2. adj. Cloying; fulsome.
  3. adj. Gratifying a depraved sense; obscene.

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. extremely pleasing to the sense of taste
  2. adj. having strong sexual appeal

Etymologies

  1. Middle English lucius, alteration of licious, perhaps short for delicious, delicious; see delicious.

Examples

  • “Splendid materials -- materials that the hand of an artist would make luscious -- egad, sir; _luscious_ -- utterly ruined in the handling.”

    Four Years in Rebel Capitals An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death

  • “When we moved in luscious purple grapes hung from them ... last yr not such luck.”

    sarcler - French Word-A-Day

  • “Out mid-October: a biopic on Ian Curtis, the lead singer of Joy Division, shot in luscious black and white by renowned photographer and music video director Anton Corbijn.”

    Boing Boing

  • “I feel a little bit like a commercial using the word luscious, but this cup of custardy tofu, dressed with a thin layer of light soy sauce really was luscious.”

    Izayoi: Come for the Food

  • “Bock beer is of a darker colour than the common lager, and possesses a certain luscious flavour, being spiced with an infusion of coriander or some such aromatic seed.”

    Lager Beer in New York

  • “My seven-year-old daughter, who'd only consented to make this Swedish journey when told she'd be sleeping in a real farmhouse, pronounced her peanut butter and jelly sandwich "luscious" -- an adjective she usually reserves for things like pink and green breakfast cereals.”

    Chicago Reader

  • “The Sichuan Wonton with Red Oil was once again luscious perfection (the sauce is too good to waste and so I add a few forkfuls of their (somehow) delicately seasoned plain white rice to soak up the sauce when done.”

    NJ Dining: Chengdu 1 (UPDATED August 2009)

  • “But on his end, the marriage plummets quickly from him preening about landing someone another character calls "luscious" to displays of intense, irrational jealousy.”

    News - chicagotribune.com

  • “However pleasant it may be to the palate while we are feeding on it, it is sure to leave a bitter relish behind it; and so far, indeed, it may be called a luscious morsel, that the most greedy appetites are soon glutted, and the most eager longing for it is soon turned into loathing and repentance.”

    Amelia — Complete

  • “Large and luscious, that is, if you pluck some of those fruits now, before they get much bigger.”

    LJWorld.com stories: News

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Comments

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  • thesaraheffect I absolutely despise this word. If there is any word that evokes a response more far (further?) removed from its definition than this word, I have yet to find it! Sep 17, 2009

‘luscious’ has been looked up 3199 times, loved by 9 people, added to 88 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 10.