Library / English Dictionary

LUST

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Self-indulgent sexual desire (personified as one of the deadly sins)

Synonyms:

lust; luxuria

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("lust" is a kind of...):

deadly sin; mortal sin (an unpardonable sin entailing a total loss of grace)

Derivation:

lust (have a craving, appetite, or great desire for)

lusty (vigorously passionate)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A strong sexual desire

Synonyms:

lecherousness; lust; lustfulness

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Hypernyms ("lust" is a kind of...):

concupiscence; eros; physical attraction; sexual desire (a desire for sexual intimacy)

Derivation:

lust (have a craving, appetite, or great desire for)

lusty (vigorously passionate)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Have a craving, appetite, or great desire for

Synonyms:

crave; hunger; lust; starve; thirst

Classified under:

Verbs of eating and drinking

Hypernyms (to "lust" is one way to...):

desire; want (feel or have a desire for; want strongly)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s PP

Derivation:

lust (self-indulgent sexual desire (personified as one of the deadly sins))

lust (a strong sexual desire)

Credits

 Context examples: 

All that stirring of old instincts which at stated periods drives men out from the sounding cities to forest and plain to kill things by chemically propelled leaden pellets, the blood lust, the joy to kill—all this was Buck’s, only it was infinitely more intimate.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

This was the being I was helping to transfer to London, where, perhaps, for centuries to come he might, amongst its teeming millions, satiate his lust for blood, and create a new and ever-widening circle of semi-demons to batten on the helpless.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

But more than once, stealing into the room, when it was her watch off, she would catch the two men glaring ferociously at each other, wild animals the pair of them, in Hans's face the lust to kill, in Dennin's the fierceness and savagery of the cornered rat.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Challenger's eyes were shining with the lust of slaughter.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“The maid is like the young filly, which kicks heels and plunges for very lust of life. Give her time, dame, give her time.”

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He found it expedient to be cautious all the time, except for the rare moments, when, assured of his own intrepidity, he abandoned himself to petty rages and lusts.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

A mist dispersed; I saw my life to be forfeit; and fled from the scene of these excesses, at once glorying and trembling, my lust of evil gratified and stimulated, my love of life screwed to the topmost peg.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

His nostrils seemed to dilate with a purely animal lust for the chase, and his mind was so absolutely concentrated upon the matter before him that a question or remark fell unheeded upon his ears, or, at the most, only provoked a quick, impatient snarl in reply.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Madam, he pursued, I have a Master to serve whose kingdom is not of this world: my mission is to mortify in these girls the lusts of the flesh; to teach them to clothe themselves with shame-facedness and sobriety, not with braided hair and costly apparel; and each of the young persons before us has a string of hair twisted in plaits which vanity itself might have woven; these, I repeat, must be cut off; think of the time wasted, of—Mr. Brocklehurst was here interrupted: three other visitors, ladies, now entered the room.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

He was perfectly astonished with the historical account gave him of our affairs during the last century; protesting it was only a heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, revolutions, banishments, the very worst effects that avarice, faction, hypocrisy, perfidiousness, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, envy, lust, malice, and ambition, could produce.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)