Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Immoral or unchaste; lewd.
- adj. Gratuitously cruel; merciless.
- adj. Marked by unprovoked, gratuitous maliciousness; capricious and unjust: wanton destruction.
- adj. Unrestrainedly excessive: wanton extravagance; wanton depletion of oil reserves.
- adj. Luxuriant; overabundant: wanton tresses.
- adj. Frolicsome; playful.
- adj. Undisciplined; spoiled.
- adj. Obsolete Rebellious; refractory.
- v. To act, grow, or move in a wanton manner; be wanton.
- v. To waste or squander extravagantly.
- n. One who is immoral, lewd, or licentious.
- n. One that is playful or frolicsome.
- n. One that is undisciplined or spoiled.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Ill brought up; undisciplined; unrestrained; hence, free from moral control.
- Characterized by extreme recklessness, fool-hardiness, or heartlessness; malicious; recklessly disregardful of right or of consequences: applied both to persons and to their acts.
- Wild; unruly; loose; unrestrained.
- Playful; sportive; frolicsome.
- Rank; luxuriant.
- Characterized by unrestrained indulgence of the natural impulses or appetites; dissolute; licentious.
- Particularly, unchaste; lascivious; libidinous; lustful; lewd.
- n. A pampered, petted creature; one spoiled by fondness or indulgence; also, a frolicsome, roving, sportive creature; a trifier: used sometimes as a term of endearment.
- n. A lewd person; a lascivious man or woman.
- To revel; frolic unrestrainedly; sport.
- To sport or dally in lewdness; sport lasciviously.
- To make wanton.
- To spend or waste in wantonness.
Wiktionary
- adj. obsolete Undisciplined, unruly; not able to be controlled.
- adj. Lewd, immoral; sexually open, unchaste.
- adj. obsolete Playful, sportive; being merry or carefree (often used figuratively).
- adj. obsolete Self-indulgent, fond of excess; luxurious.
- adj. Capricious, reckless of morality, justice etc.; acting without regard for the law or the well-being of others; gratuitous.
- adj. obsolete Extravagant, unrestrained; excessive (of speech or thought).
- n. A pampered or coddled person.
- n. An overly playful person.
- n. A self-indulgent person, fond of excess.
- n. archaic A lewd or immoral person, especially a prostitute.
- v. intransitive To act wantonly; become wanton.
- v. transitive To waste or squander, especially in pleasure (often with away).
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Untrained; undisciplined; unrestrained; hence, loose; free; luxuriant; roving; sportive.
- adj. Wandering from moral rectitude; perverse; dissolute.
- adj. Specifically: Deviating from the rules of chastity; lewd; lustful; lascivious; libidinous; lecherous.
- adj. Reckless; heedless.
- n. A roving, frolicsome thing; a trifler; -- used rarely as a term of endearment.
- n. One brought up without restraint; a pampered pet.
- n. A lewd person; a lascivious man or woman.
- v. To rove and ramble without restraint, rule, or limit; to revel; to play loosely; to frolic.
- v. To sport in lewdness; to play the wanton; to play lasciviously.
- v. obsolete To cause to become wanton; also, to waste in wantonness.
WordNet 3.0
- n. lewd or lascivious woman
- v. spend wastefully
- v. behave extremely cruelly and brutally
- adj. occurring without motivation or provocation
- v. indulge in a carefree or voluptuous way of life
- v. become extravagant; indulge (oneself) luxuriously
- adj. casual and unrestrained in sexual behavior
- v. waste time; spend one's time idly or inefficiently
- v. engage in amorous play
Etymologies
- From wan- + (a descendant of) Old English togen, past participle of tēon ("to train, discipline"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English wantowen : wan-, not, lacking (from Old Englishs) + towen, past participle of teen, to bring up (from Old English tēon, to lead, draw). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“V. ii.310 (340,7) you make a wanton of me] A _wanton_ was, a man feeble and effeminate.”
“Mr. Rowland, the Ramsey pub landlord, says his change of heart about the EU came when he saw what he calls the "wanton destruction" that EU rules and quotas brought to fishing towns on the northern English coast.”
“Maxwell land grant case, which he characterizes as a wanton and shameful surrender to the rapacity of monopolists of 1,662,764 acres of the public domain, on which hundreds of poor men had settled in good faith and made valuable improvements.”
“This kind of what I call wanton stupidity, where an industry delivers a sub-standard tech and then quickly upgrades it to encourage additional sales volumes sucks.”
The Red Ferret Journal - gadgets, cool sites, freeware and tech trivia
“I pity those who don't know the difference, but I am no longer forced to show up alongside them in wanton violation of my conscience, not to mention my sense of good taste.”
“Zenawi says the VOA operates in "wanton disregard of minimum ethics of journalism and engaging in destabilizing propaganda.”
The Huffington Post: Alemayehu G. Mariam: Let Ethiopians Hear America's Voice
“Both sides engaged in wanton violence and slaughter.”
“Their behaviour was inexcusable as they took part in wanton criminality.”
“For the perverse pleasure in wanton (self -) destruction?”
“At this moment a tame linnet flew toward her, nestled its head between her breasts, and nibbled them in wanton play.”
How to Do the History of Pornography: Romantic Sexuality and its Field of Vision
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘wanton’.
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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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GRE 2014
abate, abdicate, abase, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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allover
reintegrate, spight, surveillant, harmonize, Colophon, workplace, bigoted, unsighted, bridgework, salutation, voltmeter, octane and 159 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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SAT Words
But only the ones that I don't already know.
abase, abash, abominate, abstruse, acclivity, accolade, accost, adroit, adulate, adulterate, adumbrate, affray and 241 more...
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January 2012
bloviate, pastiche, apparat, facile, paroxysm, pique, bedfellow, pedigree, tutelage, protege, protégé, retroactive and 196 more...
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GRE words Review
Review for GRE
Martinet, Polyglot, Hack, berate, hystrionics, shun, sullen, wanton, reluctant, miser, unseemly, perfunctory and 11 more...
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Sound Sex
taciturn, deflower, recursive, parapraxis, comitative, atelic, awkward, eccentric, libidinous, astereognosis, aloof, moonglade and 50 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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gre words
convoluted, deride, melancholy, antagonize, antagonize, deference, portentous, prodigious, ruminate, ineffable, turgid, mossy and 58 more...
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man gre
abase, abeyance, abreast, abscission, abscond, abyss, accede, accretion, acerbic, acidulous, acumen, adulterate and 481 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1824 more...
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aykut gre
mossy, intrusive, mettlesome, soliloquy, mocking, dissembler, prevarication, histrionics, aphorism, distinction, concise, pensive and 61 more...
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SAT Words
But only the ones that I don't already know.
abase, abash, abominate, abstruse, acclivity, accolade, accost, adroit, adulate, adulterate, adumbrate, affray and 241 more...
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ICE
quincunx, adoxography, panjundrum, breloque, surd, scripturient, rousant, favrile, embouchure, aquarelle, griffonage, sussultatory and 234 more...
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Verba Dilecta
delectable, notate, pauciloquy, paucity, pauciloquent, paucify, interscapilium, uropygium, inferna, nota, equipollent, prepollent and 677 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for wanton.

hernesheir Cf. cheesytoes. Sep 24, 2009
thesaraheffect I've never hear wanton used as a verb, how odd! Sep 17, 2009
bilby As a verb ...? Jul 17, 2009
sionnach "he has fewer of those humorous caprices of expression of which formerly he was wont to wanton".
From the Atlantic Monthly review of "Great Expectations", September 1861 issue. Jul 9, 2009
yarb Citation on jointure. Sep 12, 2008
fictionaldelusions Wanton waste of time Jun 9, 2008
sonofgroucho As in wanton hussy. May 7, 2007
gloriaha Now I'm hungry. And maybe not for soup! Jan 7, 2007
seanahan And my favorite type of Chinese soup :) Jan 6, 2007
valse Quite possibly my 10th grade English teacher's favorite word. Jan 5, 2007