Meaning & use

decadent

adjective·Advanced

Marked by luxurious self-indulgence, or showing a decline in moral or cultural standards.

See it in a sentence

The dessert menu offered a decadent chocolate cake layered with caramel and cream.

Historians describe the empire's final years as a decadent period of excess and corruption.

A note on using this word

Decadent is now used casually and positively for indulgent food or luxury, though it originally carried a critical sense of moral decline.

Words with a similar meaning

indulgentluxurious

Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.

Words with an opposite meaning

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