Opulent

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /ˈɒpjʊlənt/

Definitions

1. Characterized by luxurious wealth, lavish abundance, and rich splendor in appearance or display
2. displaying impressive wealth and elaborate luxury through costly materials and sumptuous ornamentation
3. marked by profuse richness, expensive furnishings, and an abundance of precious or elaborate embellishments

Etymology: Latin "ops" meant "wealth, power, resources," and it is the root of "opulent." The word came into English by borrowing the Latin adjective "opulentus" (or its variant "opulens"), which described someone abundantly supplied with goods and means. So the original sense was closer to "resourceful in plenty" than to the glittering luxury we now associate with it. Latin "ops" itself traces back to a much older root meaning "to work" or "to produce in abundance," which suggests that wealth was originally understood as the product of labour. Wealth, in other words, was pictured as the fruit of effort, and the word carried that sense of productive abundance with it. The same root gave Latin "opus" ("work"), a connection that is easy to miss because "opulent" and "opus" look so different on the page. Over time the emphasis moved from simply having resources to displaying them. "Opulent" today suggests lavish décor, generous spending and visible grandeur, so a word that once described the source of wealth now describes its most ostentatious expression.

Synonyms: luxurious, affluent, rich, lavish, sumptuous

Antonyms: poor, meager, simple, sparse, austere