Other forms: lavished
Lavish means generous to the point of excess. More than anybody needed, and rather more than was sensible.
It describes spending and hospitality above all: a lavish wedding, lavish praise, a lavish spread on the table. Whether it is a compliment depends on the speaker, since the same party can be described as lavish with admiration or with a raised eyebrow. As a verb it takes on — lavishing attention on a garden, lavishing gifts on a grandchild. The adverb lavishly usually follows a verb such as entertained or decorated.
1adjectivelavishVery generous or elaborate, often excessively so.
“They put on a lavish reception.”
2verbgiveTo give something in great quantity.
“He lavished attention on the car.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Lavish was a downpour. Old French lavasse meant a torrent of rain and Middle English lavas meant excessive abundance, so generosity here is described as weather.
Proto-Indo-European
*lewh₃-
Old French
lavasse
Middle English
laves
English, today
lavish
Built from
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”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA