the.com/decadent
the moment civilization stops climbing and starts ordering dessert with both hands
means Indulgently luxurious to the point of moral or cultural decline — or, more loosely, just richly, guiltily pleasurable.
from From French décadent, built on Latin decadentia, 'a falling away,' from de- ('down') plus cadere ('to fall') — the same fall that lands in cadence, cascade, and accident. It entered English in the 19th century, sharpened by the French Décadents, a wave of late-1800s poets and aesthetes who proudly embraced art they saw as the gorgeous overripeness of a fading civilization. So the word literally means 'falling down' — only later did it learn to fall onto a chaise lounge with a chocolate.
- latin roots
- from decadere, meaning to fall down
- art movement
- 19th-century writers who weaponized excess on purpose
- empire favorite
- historians blamed Rome's collapse on too much luxury
- chocolate's word
- now mostly describes very rich cake
roman empire 3rd century — period of moral and political decline with emperors like elagabal known for extreme luxury and debauchery
weimar berlin 1920s — cabaret culture and artistic excess between wwi and economic collapse, immortalized in *cabaret*