Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The quality of being extravagant.
  • noun Immoderate spending.
  • noun Something extravagant. synonym: luxury.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A wandering beyond proper bounds; an excursion or a sally out of the usual way, course, or limit.
  • noun An extravagant action, or such actions collectively; a going beyond proper limits in action, conduct, or feeling; the overdoing of something; specifically, lavish outlay or expenditure.
  • noun The quality of being extravagant: excessiveness or unreasonableness in amount or degree; exorbitance: as, extravagance of expenditure, demands, conduct, passion, etc.
  • noun Synonyms Wildness, irregularity, absurdity, excess, exorbitance, unreasonableness, profusion, waste, dissipation, bombast.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A wandering beyond proper limits; an excursion or sally from the usual way, course, or limit.
  • noun The state of being extravagant, wild, or prodigal beyond bounds of propriety or duty; want of moderation; excess; especially, undue expenditure of money; vaid and superfluous expense; prodigality.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun excessive or superfluous expenditure of money
  • noun prodigality as in extravagance of anger, love, expression, imagination, or demands.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun excessive spending
  • noun the trait of spending extravagantly
  • noun the quality of exceeding the appropriate limits of decorum or probability or truth

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Medieval Latin extra + vagari ("to wander").

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Examples

  • She had not loved her supposed father and mother, who had interfered with her pleasure, disapproving of what they called her extravagance and frivolity ....

    A Soldier of the Legion 1889

  • Presently, encouraged by my lamb-like reticence, Alice began to complain gently of what she termed my extravagance, and finally she fell into the pernicious practice of berating me roundly for neglecting my family for the selfish -- yes, the cruel -- gratification of a foolish fad, and then she would weep and gather up the two boys and wonder how soon we should all be in the poorhouse.

    The Holy Cross and Other Tales Eugene Field 1872

  • He pinches me in money matters so closely, and grumbles so eternally at what he calls my extravagance, that I'm out of all patience.

    The Two Wives 1847

  • My really great and exciting extravagance is that I travel first class even when

    Philippa Gregory Answers Questions About Her Life, Her Writing and Specifically about Her Books Depicting the Lives of Henry VIII's Wives. 2010

  • This question of establishing an approximately true picture of Canada's resources is very important to Canada's youth, for an education founded in extravagance, based upon the assumption of untold resources easily converted to great wealth is ill-designed to prepare Canadian youth for the struggle that is ahead of them if these estimates of wealth should prove greatly exaggerated.

    Canada's Challenge to its Youth 1938

  • That spirit of extravagance is detrimental to the interests of the country.

    The Industrial Development of the Last West 1908

  • His magnificent extravagance is well exemplified in the small palace he built for the Empress Eugénie, and which has never been occupied since.

    Three Months in the Soudan 1885

  • If you call extravagance and corruption, denying the right of petition and totally disregarding the Constitution -- those only safe guards of the people -- and apologizing for, shielding, and giving free license to the Ku-Klux, those midnight murderers that have made the South almost an earthly hell, "working hard for the best interests of the State," the late Legislature has done it to perfection.

    READ AND CIRCULATE! No Author 1872

  • He was the son of a merchant, who, having spent his substance in extravagance and dissipation, had

    Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia 1856

  • [Page 18] husband repaid her with harshness and brutality, he all the time rioting and revelling in extravagance and dissipation, and squandering in the company of guilty paramours the produce of her industry?

    A Letter to the Queen on Lord Chancellor Cransworth's Marriage and Divorce Bill 1855

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