extravagance

Definition

Excessive or superfluous expenditure of money.

Etymology

Borrowed from French extravagance, from Medieval Latin extra + vagor (“to wander”).

Example Sentences

• "The visions of romance were over. Catherine was completely awakened. Henry’s address, short as it had been, had more thoroughly opened her eyes to the extravagance of her late fancies than all their several disappointments had done."
• "A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor; as, again, the arm-chair in which Bunting now sat forward, staring into the dull, small fire. In fact, that arm-chair had been an extravagance of Mrs. Bunting. She had wanted her husband to be comfortable after the day's work was done, and she had paid thirty-seven shillings for the chair."
• "At the same time he will need most carefully to avoid anything resembling extravagance or overstatement. While no socialist heorist has ever been known to discredit himself with his fellows even by the silliest of proposals, the old-fashioned liberal will damn himself by an impracticable suggestion."