decadence
Other forms: decadences
Whether in reference to chocolate cake for breakfast or wild all-night parties, decadence means extravagance, luxury, and self-indulgence with a sense of moral decline.
The Latin root of decadence means "to fall down," and this may help you understand the full sense of the word. Decadence is not simply a synonym for excess; it also suggests that one's morals have gone down. The word is usually negative but not always. When hostile critics called a group of French writers and artists in the late 1800s decadents, these poets and painters embraced the label. When a pastry chef calls her creation Chocolate Decadence, she is promoting a mildly guilty pleasure, not announcing the end of Western civilization.
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the state of being degenerate in mental or moral qualitiessynonyms: decadency, degeneracy, degeneration
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excess in action and immoderate indulgence of bodily appetites, especially in passion or indulgencesynonyms: intemperance, intemperateness, self-indulgencetypes:dissipation, dissolution, licentiousness, looseness, profligacydissolute indulgence in sensual pleasurejaga bout of drinking or drug takingspending spreea brief period of extravagant spendingtype of:
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Vocabulary lists containing decadence
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In this memoir, presented in graphic form, Marjane Satrapi describes growing up during the Iranian revolution.
Music legend Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature on October 13, 2016. To celebrate, this list collects 75 vocabulary words from Dylan's lyrics from his entire catalog of songs. A wordsmith like no other, Dylan bends words to his will, like rhyming "teeth" with "breathe" in Idiot Wind, and he finds room for many words you're unlikely to encounter anywhere else in pop music, like "crestfallen," "reprobate," and "proletariat."