Meaning of sumptuary law | Babel Free

Definitions

A law that attempts to regulate permitted consumption, especially of clothing, food, and luxury expenditures.

historical

Equivalents

Examples

“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.”

“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.”

CEFR level