English 'luxury' comes from Latin 'luxuria' (excess, extravagance), from 'luxus' (excess) — a word that meant 'lust' and 'sinful indulgence' in English for over three centuries before its meaning shifted in the seventeenth century to the positive sense of 'comfortable elegance' used today.
A state of great comfort and extravagant living; an inessential but desirable item or experience.
From Old French 'luxurie' (debauchery, dissoluteness, lust), from Latin 'luxuria' (excess, extravagance, rankness, offensiveness), from 'luxus' (excess, abundance, extravagance, indulgence). The Latin 'luxus' may derive from PIE *lug- or *lewg- (to bend, to turn aside), with the idea of deviation from the straight path of moderation. In Middle English, 'luxury' primarily meant 'lust, lechery' — the positive sense of 'comfortable elegance' did not dominate until the seventeenth century. Key
For most of its history in English, 'luxury' was a deeply negative word meaning 'lust' and 'sinful indulgence.' Chaucer used it to mean 'lechery.' Shakespeare's 'luxury' means 'lust' in plays like Hamlet and King Lear. The shift to the modern positive sense — comfortable elegance — occurred gradually in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, mirroring