a. Also 5 lucratijf, -tyf(e, 6 -tyve. [ad. L. lucrātīv-us, f. lucrāri to gain.]
1. Yielding gain or profit; gainful, profitable. Lucrative office: an office to which compensation is attached.
14[?]. Wyclif’s Bible (1850), IV. 684 b, Addit. Prol. Luke. Manye clerkis lernen lucratijf sciencis, to gete richessis.
c. 1412. Hoccleve, De Reg. Princ., 659. An office also hadde I lucratyf.
1526. Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 237 b. To abstayne from … bodyly labours, & specyally from them that be lucratyue.
1625. Bacon, Ess., Usury (Arb.), 544. The Trade of Merchandize, being the most Lucratiue, may beare Vsury at a good Rate.
1725. Broome, Notes Pope’s Odyss., XIV. 259. III. 350. The more lucrative … method of life by Agriculture.
a. 1763. Shenstone, Ess., Wks. 1765, II. 146. Necessity may be the Mother of lucrative invention.
1777. Robertson, Hist. Amer. (1778), I. I. 29. At length, the Soldans of Egypt established a lucrative trade in that port.
1808. Scott, Prose Wks., IV. Biographies II. (1870), 37. A lucrative contract warded off the blow for a time.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., iii. I. 388. It became clear that the speculation would be lucrative.
1874. Green, Short Hist., vii. § 5. 387. A more lucrative traffic had already begun with the coast of Guinea.
b. Scots Law. Chiefly in Lucrative succession (after L. lucrativa acquisitio, Ulpian Dig. xliv. § 4): the acceptance by an heir apparent, in the lifetime of his ancestor, of a free gift of any part of the estate to which he would have succeeded.
To prevent this being done to the defrauding of creditors, the law provides that the ‘lucrative successor’ becomes liable for all the debts of the grantor contracted before the time of the grant.
1681. Visct. Stair, Instit., III. vii. (1693), 489. Lucrative Successors, how this passive Title is extended, and how Limited by our Practise … Lucrative Dispositions of any part of the Heretage infer this passive Title.
1848. Wharton, Law Lex., Lucrative Succession.
† 2. Of persons, their actions and sentiments: Bent upon or directed towards making of gain; avaricious, covetous. Obs.
1549. Latimer, 7th Serm. bef. Edw. VI. (Arb.), 53. He requyres no such diligence as the most part of our lucratiue lawyers do vse.
1603. Daniel, Epist. to Sir T. Egerton, xxiii. To binde the hands of Iustice vp so hard, That lest she falling to prooue Lucratiue Might basely reach them out to take reward.
1630. Donne, Serm., xiii. 131. Let not thy prayer be Lucrative nor Vindicative.
1744. Harris, Three Treat., Wks. (1841), 52. May we not venture … to pass the same sentence on the lucrative life, as we have already on the political.
1750. Beawes, Lex Mercat. (1752), 258. Attributed … not to any lucrative view of unnecessarily swelling my book.
1792. W. Roberts, Looker-on, No. 32. (1794), I. 458. To enter upon … a cure … on which perhaps I should not wish to reside long, would show more of the lucrative mind than the pastoral care.
1797. S. James, Narr. Voy., 58. To show what a man will do to compass his lucrative desires.
Hence Lucratively adv., Lucrativeness.
1726. Leoni, trans. Alberti’s Archit., I. 37. The Censors, in farming out … Estates, always began with the Lake Lucrinus, because of the Lucrativeness of its Name.
1848. Webster, Lucratively, profitably.
1871. Echo, 4 April, 1/2. The device … ingeniously and lucratively extricates authorities from a serious difficulty.
1899. Sir G. Douglas, James Hogg, v. 95–6. His pen, besides being abundantly and lucratively occupied in [etc.].
