different between extravagance vs lunacy

English

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?k?st?æv???ns/
• Hyphenation: ex?trav?a?gance

Noun

extravagance (countable and uncountable, plural extravagances)

1. Excessive or superfluous expenditure of money.
2. Prodigality, as of anger, love, expression, imagination, or demands.
   • 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.

Synonyms

Antonyms

• frugality
• economize
• moderation

Related terms

Translations

French

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -??s

Noun

extravagance f (plural extravagances)

1. extravagance
   • 1837 Louis Viardot, L’Ingénieux Hidalgo Don Quichotte de la Manche^{fr.Wikisource}, translation of El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Chapter I:

     Sa curiosité et son extravagance arrivèrent à ce point qu’il vendit plusieurs arpents de bonnes terres à labourer pour acheter des livres de chevalerie à lire.

     His curiosity and his extravagance came to the point that he sold several arpents of good working land to buy books of chivalry to read.

Related terms

• extravagant
  • extravagamment

Further reading

• “extravagance” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

English

Etymology

From lunatic +? -cy.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?lu?.n?.si /, /?lju?.n?.si/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?lu?.n?.si /

Noun

lunacy (countable and uncountable, plural lunacies)

1. (of a person or group of people) The state of being mad, insanity
   1. a cyclical mental disease, apparently linked to the lunar phases
   2. insanity implying legal irresponsibility.
2. Something deeply misguided.

Synonyms

• (state of being mad): insanity, madness, craziness, craze

Translations