Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Given over to dissipation; dissolute.
- adj. Recklessly wasteful; wildly extravagant.
- n. A profligate person; a wastrel.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To drive away; disperse; discomfit; overcome.
- Overthrown; conquered; defeated.
- Ruined in morals; abandoned to vice; lost to principle, virtue, or decency; extremely vicious; shamelessly wicked.
- Synonyms Profligate, Abandoned, Reprobate, etc. See abandoned and wicked.
- n. An abandoned person; one who has lost all regard for good principles, virtue, or decency.
Wiktionary
- adj. obsolete Overthrown, ruined.
- adj. Inclined to waste resources or behave extravagantly.
- adj. Immoral; abandoned to vice.
- n. An abandoned person; one openly and shamelessly vicious; a dissolute person.
- n. An overly wasteful or extravagant individual.
- v. obsolete To drive away; to overcome.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. obsolete Overthrown; beaten; conquered.
- adj. Broken down in respect of rectitude, principle, virtue, or decency; openly and shamelessly immoral or vicious; dissolute.
- n. An abandoned person; one openly and shamelessly vicious; a dissolute person.
- v. obsolete To drive away; to overcome.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. recklessly wasteful
- n. a recklessly extravagant consumer
- n. a dissolute man in fashionable society
- adj. unrestrained by convention or morality
Etymologies
- From Latin prōflīgātus ("wretched, abandoned"), participle of prōflīgō ("strike down, cast down"), from pro ("forward") + fligere ("to strike, dash") (Wiktionary)
- Latin prōflīgātus, past participle of prōflīgāre, to ruin, cast down : prō-, forward; see pro-1 + -flīgāre, intensive of flīgere, to strike down. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“N'dour has strongly criticised what he calls the profligate spending of the Wade leadership in a country where formal employment is rare and average income per head is $3 a day.”
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph
“Moyo shows well how fundamental economic liberalisation espoused by what she calls the profligate, greedy, self-interested west has come back to bite it.”
“Rendell to task for what he calls profligate spending.”
“The tuition subsidy to foreigners costs state taxpayers an estimated $117 million per year — a substantial sum even in profligate California.”
“A planet with the limitations and the make-up of Earth cannot realistically be expected to much longer maintain profligate over-consumption and adamantine hoarding of limited resources as well as seemingly endless expansion of production capabilities by millions of people, mostly in the overdeveloped world, that we see occurring as a result of actions by a tiny minority of selfish people who possess the wealth and power needed to behave in this ostentatious way.”
Personal Sustainability: The Path to Worldwide Environmental Sustainability
“Know, O King that a certain profligate man, who was addicted to the sex, once heard of a beautiful and lovely woman who dwelt in a city other than his own.”
“Over the last few years there has been a tremendous turnaround in profligate government spending.”
“The girl who marries the rich old man or the titled profligate is condemned by the popular voice; and the girl who marries the poor young man, and helps him live his best, is still approved by the same great arbiter.”
“Sandwich, whom he called a profligate fellow -- hoped he was present, (741) and added, if he is not, I am ready to call him so to his face in any private company: even Rigby, his accomplice, said not a word in behalf of his brother culprit.”
“I wonder if your time might be better spent -- and the public better served -- if you were to critique policy as regards energy and conservation rather than the problems (and global warming is only the most worrisome) that stem from long-term profligate and inefficient energy use.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘profligate’.
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Test Prep or Just for fun
Building a list for standardized test prep or just for learning some new words! Please add any words that you feel are important for the SAT/GRE/GMAT etc...
throng, morass, parley, facile, kismet, strife, jetsam, carrion, annex, harbinger, vestige, surreptitious and 575 more...
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1100
abound, technology, branch of knowled..., prognosticate, automaton, matron, an older married ..., realm, special field of ..., kingdom, annals, historical records and 981 more...
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GRE 2014
abase, abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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phrontistery - p
from phrontistery.info
pustule, purulence, pushful, purser, purpureal, putative, purpure, purpresture, purloin, purline, purlieu, purlicue and 1766 more...
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2nd part
prelude, ample, escalate, prototype, accession, acquisition, archives, zealot, indict, verdict, intimidating, timid and 454 more...
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Unsavory characters
absconder, aretaloger, arriviste, avaunter, bamboozler, bandit, banger, barbarian, barmecide, barrator, beldam, blatherskite and 190 more...
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GRE
predilection, explicit, appeal, supplication, appealing, enchanting, ovation, pertinent, apropos, opportunely, applicable, germane and 381 more...
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Rlist
voracious, indiscriminate, steeped, replete, eminent, prognosticate, abound, automaton, paradoxical, chronoloigical, annal, amateur and 81 more...
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Vocabulary
shibboleth, verboten, jejune, ostensible, multifarious, quintessence, purportedly, tangential, vacillate, quagmire, wanton, onerous and 74 more...
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Filter 1
Hard words level 1
besotted, altricial, consecrate, consternate, desuetude, detractor, dissolute, divisive, emaciated, enamored, ensconce, garishly and 76 more...
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To Be or Not To Be
Words to live by (or not)
prescient, polyglot, fatuous, phlegmatic, mendacious, pithy, philistine, perspicacious, epicure, ebullient, probity, profligate and 9 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1834 more...
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Barron's 1100 words you need to know ...
amnesty, balk, blunt, dismantle, exonerate, expatriate, fiat, legion, mendacious, megalomania, nostalgia, parsimonious and 8 more...
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Faves
nepenthe, cupidity, anodyne, obdurate, doleful, obsolescent, quale, piquant, velleity, inchoate, disport, facile and 366 more...
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SAT Vocab
Redundant.
problematic, proclivity, prodigal, prodigious, prodigy, profane, profligate, profound, profusion, proliferation, prolific, prologue and 455 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for profligate.
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