Arnold Zwicky's Blog

That’s the portmanteau in yesterday’s Luann strip:

voluminous + voluptuous, probably with a bit of sumptuous mixed in — but certainly ample heft combined with sensuousness. Not a waif, and not any typical fashion model.

(Hat tip to Benita Bendon Campbell.)

The three lexical contributors, from NOAD:

adj. voluptuous: 1 (of a woman) curvaceous and sexually attractive. 2 relating to or characterized by luxury or sensual pleasure: long curtains in voluptuous crimson velvet. ORIGIN late Middle English: from Old French voluptueux or Latin voluptuosus, from voluptas ‘pleasure’.

adj. voluminous: (of clothing or drapery) loose and ample.

adj. sumptuous: splendid and expensive-looking: the banquet was a sumptuous, luxurious meal.

voluptuous alone carries most of the import of volumptuous: voluptuousness requires a body with enough substance, enough padding, to be curvaceous, and also a body that is sensual to the eye and to the touch, like velvet.

This entry was posted on August 22, 2018 at 10:26 am and is filed under Gender and sexuality, Language and gender, Language and the body, Linguistics in the comics, Portmanteaus. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.