Literary notes about LUCRATIVE (AI summary)
The term "lucrative" is frequently used to denote positions, professions, or endeavors that yield high financial rewards, often serving as a marker of success or ambition in various literary narratives. It underscores not only the profitability of a position—whether it be a post in a royal court ([1], [2]), a specialized trade such as pork-packing ([3]) or even piracy ([4])—but also highlights how some roles, though not necessarily prestigious, are chosen for their gainful returns. Authors also extend the figurative use of “lucrative” to describe unexpected windfalls in social and economic contexts, as in the diversion of trade or the allure of a favorable appointment ([5], [6]). This versatile usage enriches character motivations and situates economic advantage as a central theme in the narrative landscape across diverse periods and genres.
- The king had just appointed him chief huntsman, not so exalted an office as chamberlain, but a more lucrative one.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova - The Republic had given him this employ—a very lucrative one—and he was only sorry that it would expire in two years.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova - I am told that pork-packing is the most lucrative profession in America, after politics.
— from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde - Cavendish continued the British tradition of lucrative piracy, and in 1586 captured the great plate galleon.
— from Herman Melville, Mariner and Mystic by Raymond M. (Raymond Melbourne) Weaver - A wardship, which in our days is generally an honourable and thankless burden, was in Chaucer’s time a lucrative and coveted windfall.
— from Chaucer and His England by G. G. (George Gordon) Coulton - The lucrative trade of Arabia and India flowed through the port of Alexandria, to the capital and provinces of the empire.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
