Other forms: luxuries
Luxury is expensive comfort far beyond what anyone needs. Live in luxury, a luxury hotel, the luxury of time.
As a modifier it has been used so widely that it means little — luxury flats are simply expensive ones. The luxury of something means an unaffordable privilege: the luxury of choosing. Note that the Latin luxuria meant excess and rankness, and had a strong flavour of vice about it.
1nounluxuryExpensive comfort far beyond what is needed.
“After weeks of camping, a hot bath felt like real luxury.”
2nounprivilegeA privilege somebody cannot afford.
“With three small children, a lie-in at the weekend is a luxury she rarely gets.”
luxury is expensive comfort.
Latin luxuria means rankness or excess, from luxus, extravagance. The moral disapproval was part of the word.
Proto-Indo-European
*lewg-
Latin
luxuria — rankness, luxury
Old French
luxurie
Middle English
luxurie
English, today
luxury
Built from
From Middle English luxurie, from Old French luxurie, from Latin luxuria (“rankness, luxury”), from luxus (“extravagance, luxury”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA