LUXURIANT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does luxuriant mean? 

• LUXURIANT (adjective)
  The adjective LUXURIANT has 3 senses:

1. marked by complexity and richness of detail

2. displaying luxury and furnishing gratification to the senses

3. produced or growing in extreme abundance

  Familiarity information: LUXURIANT used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LUXURIANT (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Marked by complexity and richness of detail

Synonyms:

elaborate; luxuriant

Context example:

an elaborate lace pattern

Similar:

fancy (not plain; decorative or ornamented)

Derivation:

luxuriance (the property of being lush and abundant and a pleasure to the senses)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Displaying luxury and furnishing gratification to the senses

Synonyms:

epicurean; luxuriant; luxurious; sybaritic; voluptuary; voluptuous

Context example:

a chinchilla robe of sybaritic lavishness

Similar:

indulgent (characterized by or given to yielding to the wishes of someone)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Produced or growing in extreme abundance

Synonyms:

exuberant; lush; luxuriant; profuse; riotous

Context example:

their riotous blooming

Similar:

abundant (present in great quantity)

Derivation:

luxuriance (the property of being lush and abundant and a pleasure to the senses)

luxuriate (thrive profusely or flourish extensively)

 Context examples 

Therefore she did as she was told, and did it with such nervous hands that her hair (which was luxuriant and beautiful) fell all about her face.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The pines are not tall or luxuriant, but they are sombre and add an air of severity to the scene.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

It may have been twenty yards across, and was banked in on each side by most luxuriant vegetation.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The statesman received us with that old-fashioned courtesy for which he is remarkable, and seated us on the two luxuriant lounges on either side of the fireplace.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The remainder was shut off by knolls of old trees, or luxuriant plantations, and the steep woody hills rising behind, to give it shelter, were beautiful even in the leafless month of March.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

As you may observe, Mr. Holmes, my hair is somewhat luxuriant, and of a rather peculiar tint of chestnut. It has been considered artistic. I could not dream of sacrificing it in this offhand fashion.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In each of the sisters there was one trait of the mother—and only one; the thin and pallid elder daughter had her parent's Cairngorm eye: the blooming and luxuriant younger girl had her contour of jaw and chin—perhaps a little softened, but still imparting an indescribable hardness to the countenance otherwise so voluptuous and buxom.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The scenes in its neighbourhood, Charmouth, with its high grounds and extensive sweeps of country, and still more, its sweet, retired bay, backed by dark cliffs, where fragments of low rock among the sands, make it the happiest spot for watching the flow of the tide, for sitting in unwearied contemplation; the woody varieties of the cheerful village of Up Lyme; and, above all, Pinny, with its green chasms between romantic rocks, where the scattered forest trees and orchards of luxuriant growth, declare that many a generation must have passed away since the first partial falling of the cliff prepared the ground for such a state, where a scene so wonderful and so lovely is exhibited, as may more than equal any of the resembling scenes of the far-famed Isle of Wight: these places must be visited, and visited again, to make the worth of Lyme understood.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

The summit showed every sign of a luxuriant vegetation, with bushes near the edge, and farther back many high trees.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It was a most beautiful season; never did the fields bestow a more plentiful harvest or the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage, but my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)