Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- n. A person whose life is given over to luxury and sensual pleasures; a sensualist: "an adventurous voluptuary, angling in all streams for variety of pleasures” ( Thomas De Quincey).
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. One whose life is devoted to sensual appetites; a sensualist, a pleasure-seeker.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- adj. Voluptuous; luxurious.
- n. A voluptuous person; one who makes his physical enjoyment his chief care; one addicted to luxury, and the gratification of sensual appetites.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Pertaining or contributing to luxury and sensual pleasure; promoting sensual indulgence.
- Given to sensual indulgence; voluptuous: as, voluptuary habits.
- n. pl. voluptuaries (-riz). A man given up to luxury or the gratification of the appetite and other sensual indulgences; a sensualist.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adj. displaying luxury and furnishing gratification to the senses
- n. a person addicted to luxury and pleasures of the senses
Etymologies
Examples
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I had become what is called a voluptuary; and to be a voluptuary is a physical condition like the condition of a victim of the morphine habit, of a drunkard, and of
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I had become what is called a voluptuary; and to be a voluptuary is a physical condition like the condition of a victim of the morphine habit, of a drunkard, and of a smoker.
The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories [a machine-readable transcription]
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Philip was a voluptuary, that is, a completely selfish egotist, whose disposition and character resembled the rapier he wore, polished, keen, and brilliant, but inflexible and unpitying.
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He himself, who has been described as a voluptuary, delighted in the endurance of cold and heat and of severe labor.
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But he had already realised the tragedy of the voluptuary, which is, after a little time, not that he must go on living, but that he cannot live in two places at once.
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*The part played in evolution by the voluptuary will be the same as that already played by the glutton.
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The part played in evolution by the voluptuary will be the same as that already played by the glutton.
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"Ah! The voluptuary, that is why he will not open the door."
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Sir Philip was a voluptuary, that is, a completely selfish egotist, whose disposition and character resembled the rapier he wore, polished, keen, and brilliant, but inflexible and unpitying.
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Newhouse set of not one, not two but three chaises longues, which do hint at the reclining so regularly practiced by voluptuary Romans as their civilization advanced down history's slippery slope.
David Finkle: First Nighter: Jon Robin Baitz's "Other Desert Cities" is Red-Hot
utarcher commented on the word voluptuary
"His countenance bore as little the marks of self-denial, as his habit indicated contempt of worldly splendour. His features might have been called good, had there not lurked under the pent-house of his eye, that sly epicurean twinkle which indicates the cautious voluptuary."
- Description of the Prior of Jorvaulx Abbey in chapter two of 'Ivanhoe' by Sir Walter Scott
December 23, 2010
bilby commented on the word voluptuary
"Though depicted as a decadent voluptuary, she remained celibate for more than half of her adult life."
- Michiko Kakutani, 'Cleopatra Behind Her Magic Mirror', New York Times, 5 June 1990.
September 6, 2009