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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Given over to dissipation; dissolute.
  2. adj. Recklessly wasteful; wildly extravagant.
  3. n. A profligate person; a wastrel.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. To drive away; disperse; discomfit; overcome.
  2. Overthrown; conquered; defeated.
  3. Ruined in morals; abandoned to vice; lost to principle, virtue, or decency; extremely vicious; shamelessly wicked.
  4. Synonyms Profligate, Abandoned, Reprobate, etc. See abandoned and wicked.
  5. n. An abandoned person; one who has lost all regard for good principles, virtue, or decency.

Wiktionary

  1. adj. Inclined to waste resources or behave extravagantly.
  2. adj. Immoral; abandoned to vice.
  3. n. An abandoned person; one openly and shamelessly vicious; a dissolute person.
  4. n. An overly wasteful or extravagant individual.
  5. v. To drive away; to overcome.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. Overthrown; beaten; conquered.
  2. adj. Broken down in respect of rectitude, principle, virtue, or decency; openly and shamelessly immoral or vicious; dissolute.
  3. n. An abandoned person; one openly and shamelessly vicious; a dissolute person.
  4. v. To drive away; to overcome.

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. recklessly wasteful
  2. n. a recklessly extravagant consumer
  3. n. a dissolute man in fashionable society
  4. adj. unrestrained by convention or morality

Etymologies

  1. Latin prōflīgātus, past participle of prōflīgāre, to ruin, cast down : prō-, forward; see pro-1 + -flīgāre, intensive of flīgere, to strike down.

Examples

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Lists

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Comments

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  • kingparton The worthless and profligate meet the public eye in our streets, on the wharves, and, occasionally, stretched in a state of intoxication on the pavements.

    Mathew Carey, "Public Charities of Philadelphia" Aug 25, 2011

  • madmouth almost synonymous with 'rich man's son' Apr 13, 2009

‘profligate’ has been looked up 3185 times, loved by 14 people, added to 126 lists, commented on 2 times, and has a Scrabble score of 16.