sumptuary law

sumptuary law noun: a law that attempts to regulate permitted consumption, especially of clothing, food, and luxury expenditures.

Noun

sumptuary law (plural sumptuary laws)

(historical) A law that attempts to regulate permitted consumption, especially of clothing, food, and luxury expenditures.
- The Sumptuary Laws have fallen into such a state of desuetude as was never before seen. Our fashionable coat is an amphibium between barn-sack and drayman’s doublet.1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, chapter XIII, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book III (The Modern Worker)
- In past societies based on ascribed status, formal rules and proclamations regulated lifestyle conventions. Sumptuary laws codified which classes could wear which garments. […] With the development of achieved status, we've abandoned sumptuary laws and given Lady Justice a blindfold.2022, W. David Marx, chapter 2, in Status and Culture, Viking, →ISBN

செலவினக் கட்டுப்படுத்தச் சட்டம்

plural	sumptuary laws

What does sumptuary law mean?: Sumptuary law means a law that attempts to regulate permitted consumption, especially of clothing, food, and luxury expenditures.
What is sumptuary law in Tamil?: Sumptuary law in Tamil is செலவினக் கட்டுப்படுத்தச் சட்டம். See Sumptuary law meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is sumptuary law?: Sumptuary law is a noun.
What is the plural of sumptuary law?: The plural of sumptuary law is sumptuary laws.

Adapted from Wiktionary: sumptuary law (page history and authors); sumptuary law (Tamil 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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

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