# lucre

> English word · Noun · IPA /ˈluːkə/ · frequency rank #92,820

## Definitions
1. Money, riches, or wealth, especially when seen as having a corrupting effect or causing greed, or obtained in an underhanded manner.

## Etymology
From Middle English lūcre, lucor, lucour, lucur (“gain in money, profit; money; wages; illicit gain; advantage, benefit”), from Old French lucre or Latin lucrum (“advantage, profit; love of gain, avarice”), from Proto-Indo-European *leh₂w- (“gain, profit”) + *-tlom (variant of *-trom (suffix forming nouns denoting tools or instruments)).

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/lucre