voluptuary
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /vəˈlʌptʃʊəɹi/
ipa: /vəˈlʌptʃʊɹi/
ipa: /vəˈlʌptʃɹi/
ipa: /-tjʊ-/
ipa: /vəˈlʌpt͡ʃʊˌɛɹi/
ipa: /-ˈləp-/
Forms: form: voluptuaries
Etymology: From French voluptuaire, or directly from its etymon Late Latin voluptuārius, from Latin voluptārius (“pleasure-seeker; agreeable, delightful, pleasant; sensual”), from voluptās (“delight, pleasure, satisfaction”) + -ārius (suffix forming adjectives from nouns). Voluptās is derived from volup (“with pleasure; agreeably, pleasantly, satisfactorily”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *welh₁- (“to choose; to want”)) + -tās (suffix forming feminine abstract nouns indicating a state of being).
Senses: examples: text: But Mrs. Cole, in oppoſition to this, aſſured me that the gentlemen I ſhould be preſented to, were, by their rank and taſte of things, infinitely ſuperior to the being touch'd with any glare of dreſs, or ornaments, ſuch as ſilly women rather confound, and overlay, than ſet off their beauty with; that theſe veteran voluptuaries knew better than not to hold them in the higheſt contempt, […]
ref: 1749, [John Cleland], “[Letter the Second]”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], volume II, London: […] [Thomas Parker] for G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], →OCLC, page 16:
english: Fanny Hill
translation: Fanny Hill
text: 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.
ref: 1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, chapter II, in Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC, page 21:
text: St. Clare, who was in heart a poetical voluptuary, smiled as Miss Ophelia made her remark on his premises, […]
ref: 1851 June – 1852 April, Harriet Beecher Stowe, “Of Tom’s New Master, and Various Other Matters”, in Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly, volume I, Boston, Mass.: John P[unchard] Jewett & Company; Cleveland, Oh.: Jewett, Proctor & Worthington, published 20 March 1852, →OCLC, page 236:
text: Another Greek, the historian Megacleides, singles out Heracles as the supreme voluptuary.
ref: 1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 247:
text: "I told you so!" he said to himself under his breath, and breathing deeply like a voluptuary he advanced towards his victim.
ref: 1983, Lawrence Durrell, “The Dying Fall”, in Sebastian: Or Ruling Passions: […], London: Faber and Faber, →ISBN, pages 161–162:
text: Dawn Reynolds was an eighteen-year-old alabaster beauty with cobalt eyes and the figure of a ripe voluptuary.
ref: 2004, Martin Torgoff, “Everybody Must Get Stoned”, in Can’t Find My Way Home: America in the Great Stoned Age, 1945–2000, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 147:
text: She cast a knowing, amused eye over her surroundings, and shared the pleasures on her plate with the enthusiasm of a born voluptuary.
ref: 2022 November 1, William Grimes, “Gael Greene, Who Shook Up Restaurant Reviewing, Dies at 88”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
synonyms: word: voluptuarian
word: bon viveur
word: epicure
word: epicurean
word: hedonist
word: high-stepper
word: lapling
word: lotus-eater
word: pleasure seeker
word: pleasurist
word: sensualist
word: softling
word: sybarite
word: voluptuarian
word: voluptuary
glosses: One whose life is devoted to sensual appetites; a pleasure-seeker, a sensualist.
Derived terms: word: voluptuarian
word: voluptuate
Related terms: word: volupté
word: voluptuosity
word: voluptuous
word: voluptuously
word: voluptuousness
word: volupty