After the past few weeks of (at times, torrential) rain, the once rather parched fields around us are now looking really rather lush. When I remarked this – to myself – questions (also to myself) followed. What are the roots of the word lush? Who are its linguistic neighbours? And are its several meanings related? I know - I'm super fun! Anyway, cue some quick digging, and voilà some answers.
Lush, with the sense of abundant and luxuriant (originally vegetation), dates back to the early 17th century and was a vocabulary staple of initially Shakespeare and, later, Romantic poets like Shelley and Keats. A synonym of luxuriant, and yet the two are not linguistically related. Luxuriant comes from Latin but lush has no known etymology, and appears most likely to be a variation on lash, which in its earliest (14th century) iteration meant soft and watery, also to describe plants or fruit.
That connection between lash and lush is particularly pleasing given that the expression ‘on the lash’ – going out and drinking to excess - is also exactly what you might expect of a lush (or drunkard). Interestingly, the noun lush can refer not just to a person, but equally to a drink or a bout of drinking, plus lush can even be a verb - to drink heavily. Thus, it would be possible for a lush to lush during a lush of lushes.
The figurative sense of lush acquired sexual undertones in the 19th century. Better known for her anodyne children’s book, Ballet Shoes (and others in the ‘Shoes’ series), Noel Streatfeild, in one of her decidedly more adult novels, I ordered a Table for Six, has a character who says, ‘I’d like her to grow up a lush bint’. Wow. Oh, and bint is surely a word for another week….
Today’s most common use of lush - nice, cool, even ‘hot’ (in the Streatfeild sense) - dates back just under a century, and seems to have originated as an abbreviation for luscious. A word with its own unclear origins, perhaps even having begun its life as a mispronunciation of delicious. Which is, for me, just lush…