Leisure & Play
Effortlux
(n.)
The status earned by doing something the “hard” way when nothing requires it anymore.
She made her mother's dal makhani the traditional way: two days of effortlux and gently toasted black cardamom.
Does it ring true?
← Back to homeLeisure & Play
From the future, or already here?
Already normalNot yet… but soon
Coinage notes
Effort + luxe. More than a century ago, Veblen argued that the wealthy display status through “conspicuous abstention from labour” in The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899). The embrace of non-work used to be the luxury, but now that the labor is increasingly automated, the struggle and effort becomes a status-making symbolic choice.
There are 99 more where this came from.
Future Words: A Non-Obvious Glossary of Terms That Don’t Exist (But Soon Will) collects all 100, each with its example sentence and coinage notes, from the bestselling authors of The Future Normal. Hardcover, October 20, 2026.