''sybarite'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260904152658-00-⌔

sybarite - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

sybarite (plural sybarites)

• A person devoted to luxury and pleasure; a hedonist.
  • ✤ Synonyms: voluptuary; see also Thesaurus: sensualist
  • ✤ Antonym: hedonophobe
  • ✤ Although the proud lord clothed himself//In purple robes and gem-stones white,//Yet Nero grew to all men’s hate//A wild and cruel sybarite.¹
  • ✤ Lisa (Sian Breckin), the blondest and wildest of the women; Kim (Jamie Winstone), who is ready and willing; and Tammi (Nichola Burley), the most reluctant sybarite, are from Leeds.²
  • ✤ Thus began a dual career as political agitator and upper-crust sybarite. He arranged a packed schedule of antiwar demonstrations by day and Champagne-flooded parties with Oxford’s elite at night.³

Adjective

sybarite (comparative more sybarite, superlative most sybarite)

• Synonym of sybaritic (“of or having the qualities of a sybarite; dedicated to excessive comfort and enjoyment; decadent, hedonistic, self-indulgent”).
  • ✤ Synonyms: sybaritic, sybaritical; see also Thesaurus: hedonistic

Etymology

The noun is a learned borrowing from Latin Sybarīta + English -ite (suffix forming demonyms). Sybarīta is derived from Ancient Greek Σῠβᾰρῑ́της (Sŭbărī́tēs, “(noun) inhabitant of Sybaris; (adjective) decadent; self-indulgent”), from Σῠ́βᾰρῐς (Sŭ́bărĭs, “Sybaris”) + -ῑ́της (-ī́tēs, suffix forming demonyms)).⁴ Sybaris, a city of Magna Graecia (the coastal parts of Sicily and southern Italy once colonized by Greek settlers), was known for its wealth and the excesses and hedonism of its inhabitants.

The adjective is derived from the noun.⁴

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈsɪbəɹaɪt/
• Audio (Southern England): 🔊
• (General American) IPA: /ˈsɪbəˌɹaɪt/
• Audio (US): 🔊
• Hyphenation: sy‧bar‧ite

Printed 2026-09-04.

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Footnotes

1. 1969, Victor Ernest Watts (translator), Anicius Manlius Severinus Boëthius (author), The Consolation of Philosophy, Penguin Books, book III, chapter iv, page 87: ↩

2. 2009 January 22, Stephen Holden, “Passion and Pain at Sea, With Fatal Consequences”, in New York Times ‎${}^{[1]}$: ↩

3. 2011 December 16, William Grimes, “Christopher Hitchens, Polemicist Who Slashed All, Freely, Dies at 62”, in New York Times ‎${}^{[2]}$: ↩

4. Compare “sybarite, n. and adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, June 2022; “sybarite, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022. ↩ ↩²