Largesse is generous giving on a grand scale. Royal largesse, distribute largesse, an act of largesse.
It is nearly always slightly ironic now, since the word implies giving from a height. It first meant money scattered to a crowd on a public occasion, which is exactly the picture it still carries.
1nounlargesseGenerous giving on a grand scale.
“The village hall was rebuilt thanks to the largesse of a local millionaire.”
largesse is a generosity.
Also accepted in games: largess
It is the old French word for big, grown into a noun. Largesse is generosity on the big scale: nothing held back.
hooks ontobig
Old French largesse comes from large, generous, from Latin largus, abundant.
Old French
largesce — breadth, width; request for a monetary gift; (act of) generous giving; (chiefly in the plural) generous gift; generosity, liberality
Middle French
largece
Anglo-Norman
largece
Middle English
larges
English, today
largesse
Built from
From Middle English larges, largess, largesselargesce, largeys, largice, largis, largys, from Anglo-Norman largece, largesce, Middle French largece, largesce, largesse, and Old French largesce (“breadth, width; request for a monetary gift; (act of) generous giving; (chiefly in the plural) generous gift; generosity, liberality”) (in Anglo-Norman also “liberty; privilege”; modern French largesse), from large (“big, large; generous; wide”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA