lush
/ˈlʌʃ/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Northern England/ˈlʊʃ/
lush adjective: juicy, succulent.
Adjective (1)
lush (comparative lusher, superlative lushest)
- Juicy, succulent.
- How luſh and luſty the graſſe lookes ? How greene ?1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published...
- Mellow; soft; (of ground or soil) easily turned; fertile.
- Dense, teeming with life; luxuriant.
- Some of the world’s best rain forest and volcanic hiking can be found within the lush canopied Caribbean trail systems. Chock-full of waterfalls and hot springs, bright-colored birds and howling monkeys, flora-lined trails cut through thick, fragrant forests and up cloud-covered mountains.2006, Stefani Jackenthal, New York Times
- Virmire is a lush world located on the frontier of the Attican Traverse. Its vast seas and orbital position on the inner life zone have created a wide equatorial band of humid, tropical terrain.2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Planets: Virmire Codex entry
- Savoury, delicious.
- That meal was lush! We have to go to that restaurant again sometime!
- Thriving; rife; sumptuous.
- They rolled into Jane's room a wheeled cart lush with cake and cookies and shrimp and crudités and pop and soda water. The staff was giving us a going-away party for our trip to Seattle; it was good to understand their confidence.2005, Donald Hall, The Best Day the Worst Day: Life with Jane Kenyon, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, →ISBN, page 105
- Beautiful, sexy.
- Boys with long hair are lush!
- Amazing, cool, fantastic, wicked.
- Your voice is lush, Lucy! I could listen to it all day!
- Lax; slack; limp; flexible.
Noun
lush (countable and uncountable, plural lushes)
- A drunkard, sot, alcoholic.
- Overaged and lecherous lushes at office parties profaning the text, music, and meaning of Christmas carols.1973 December 8, A. Nolder Gay, “Coping With Christmas”, in Gay Community News, volume 1, number 25, page 3
- Intoxicating liquor.
- I took my flogging like a stone. If I had sung, some of the convicts would have given me some lush with a locust in it (laudanum hocussing), and when I was asleep would have given me a crack on the head that would have laid me straight.1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, published 1861
- If your care comes, in the liquor sink it, / Pass along the lush — I'm the boy can drink it.1841, Charles Lever, Charles O'Malley
- Synonyms:
- adult beverage, alcohol, bevvy, booze, carouse, drink, fuddling, grog, hard drink, libation
- A person who enjoys talking about themselves.
- Am I humble or am I a lush?
- Synonyms:
- egotist, narcissist
Adjective (2)
lush (comparative lusher, superlative lushest)
- Drunk; inebriated.
- “’E generally goes down there when ’e’s got ’is skinful, beggin’ your pardon, sir, an’ they do say that the more lush — in-he-briated ’e is, the more fish ’e catches.”1889, Rudyard Kipling, “Only A Subaltern”, in Under the Deodars, Boston: The Greenock Press, published 1899, page 140
Verb
lush (third-person singular simple present lushes, present participle lushing, simple past and past participle lushed)
- To drink (liquor) to excess.
Proper noun capitalized: Lush
Lush
- A surname.
lush meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
lush in Hindi
- drunkard, sot, alcoholic
- शराबी śarābī
lush in Tamil
- தழை, வளமைத் ததும்பிய புல்
lush in Urdu
- ہرا بھرا, رس بھرا, شاداب, زرخیز, شربت
lush in Bengali
- ঘন ও সতেজ, বিলাসবহুল, রসালো
More languagesFewer languages
- lush in Malayalam
- സുവൃദ്ധമായ, തിങ്ങിവളരുന്ന, അതിസമൃദ്ധമായ, നിബിഡമായ
- lush in Kannada
- ಹುಲುಸಾಗಿರುವ, ಸೊಂಪಾದ, ಸಮೃದ್ಧ, ರಸಭರಿತವಾದ
- lush in Persian
- سرسبز sarsabz
Examples of lush in a sentence
- European adventurers found themselves within a watery world, a tapestry of streams, channels, wetlands, lakes and lush riparian meadows enriched by floodwaters from the Mississippi River.2013 January, Nancy Langston, “The Fraught History of a Watery World”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 1, archived from the...
- The birds survived thanks to the mild weather in Caracas and the lush mountains that surround the city, which are covered with trees that provide macaws with fruits and seeds.2026 April 18, Manuel Rueda, “Caracas' iconic macaws threatened by vanishing palm trees”, in National Public Radio, Washington, D.C....
Synonyms of lush
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of lush
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | lusher |
| superlative | lushest |
| Noun | |
| plural | lushes |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | lushes |
| present participle | lushing |
| past participle | lushed |
| past | lushed |
Origin of lush
From Middle English lusch (“slack, relaxed, limp, loose”), from Old English *lysċ, lesċ (“slack; limp”), from Proto-West Germanic *laskwī̆, from Proto-Germanic *laskuz, *laskwaz (“weak, false, feeble”), from Proto-Indo-European *lēy- (“to let; leave behind”). Akin to Old English lysu, lesu (“false, evil, base”), Middle Low German lasch (“slack”), Middle High German er-leswen (“to become weak”), Old Norse lǫskr (“weak, feeble”), Gothic 𐌻𐌰𐍃𐌹𐍅𐍃 (lasiws, “weak, feeble”), Middle Low German las, lasich (“slack, languid, idle”), Low German lusch (“loose”). Doublet of lusk. More at lishey, lazy.
Perhaps a humorous use of the preceding word, or perhaps from Shelta lush (“food and drink”) (the sense "liquor" is older than the sense "drinker"). The Century Dictionary wrote that it was "said to be so called from one Lushington, a once well-known London brewer", but the Online Etymology Dictionary considers lushington (“drinker”) a humorous extension of lush instead.
* As an English surname, from the original sense of the adjective lush (“relaxed, slack”). * As a German surname, Americanized from Lüsch, from several placenames in Germany, derived from the obsolete Middle High German liesche (“reeds”). Also East German of Slavic origin, such as Lower Sorbian łuža (“swampy land”), from Proto-Slavic *luža.
Words formed from lush
Phrases with lush
Words that rhyme with lush
Questions about lush
- What does lush mean?
- Lush means juicy, succulent.
- What is lush in Hindi?
- Lush in Hindi is शराबी (śarābī). See Lush meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use lush in a sentence?
- European adventurers found themselves within a watery world, a tapestry of streams, channels, wetlands, lakes and lush riparian meadows enriched by floodwaters from the Mississippi River.
- What part of speech is lush?
- Lush can be an adjective, a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce lush?
- Lush is pronounced /ˈlʌʃ/.
Words near lush in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: lush (page history and authors); Lush (page history and authors); lush (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); lush (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Lush (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); lush (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); lush (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-lush.ogg.
Cite this entry: “lush.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lush. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.