lavish
la·vish
adjective
very generous
- “distributed gifts with a lavish hand”
- “the critics were lavish in their praise”
- “a munificent gift”
- “his father gave him a half-dollar and his mother a quarter and he thought them munificent”
- “prodigal praise”
- “unsparing generosity”
- “his unstinted devotion”
- “called for unstinting aid to Britain”
characterized by extravagance and profusion
- “a lavish buffet”
- “a lucullan feast”
verb
Origin
From Middle English laves, lavas, lavage (“extravagant, wasteful, prodigal”), from lavas (“excessive abundance”), from Old French lavasse, lavache (“torrent of rain”); possibly later conflated in some senses by Middle English laven (“to pour out”), equivalent to lave + -ish. Compare Scots lawage, lavisch, lavish (“unrestrained, excessively prodigal, extravagant”). Compare also English lavy (“lavish, liberal”), Dutch lafenis (“lavishness”).
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Broader terms
WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.