Decadent. I don’t know about you, but when I hear that word, I think of ooey-gooey chocolate … maybe caramel … something rich and satisfying and the highest heights of delightful.
Turns out, I’m a victim of a 1970s-and-onward advertising hijack of the word. Advertisers seized the word and began using it to describe desserts. The thing is … it doesn’t mean that at all.
What it actually means is “in a state of decline or decay (from a former condition of excellence).” It dates from the 1830s in English but is directly from a French word that means “decay.” Um … ew. Why are we using that for desserts??
Originally in English, the word was used to describe literary or artistic movements that were in a state of decline or past their heyday. Then it began to be used for pleasures that would only appeal to people of dubious morals or poor taste … and from there it just came to be associated with “pleasurable.”
Gotta love those words that have been totally flipped on their heads!
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.