Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. One who wastes, especially one who wastes money; a profligate.
- n. An idler or a loafer.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Anything cast away as spoiled in the making, or bad; waste; refuse.
- n. Anything allowed to run to waste. Specifically— Waste land; a common.
Carew, Survey of Cornwall, fol. 13. - n. A profligate.
Wiktionary
- n. dated One who is profligate, who wastes time or resources extravagantly.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. obsolete, Prov. Eng., engraving, obsolete, Prov. Eng., engraving Any waste thing or substance.
- n. obsolete, Prov. Eng., engraving, Prov. Eng., engraving Waste land or common land.
- n. Prov. Eng., engraving, engraving A profligate.
- n. engraving A neglected child; a street Arab.
- n. Obs. or Prov. Eng. Anything cast away as bad or useless, as imperfect bricks, china, etc.
WordNet 3.0
- n. someone who dissipates resources self-indulgently
Etymologies
- 1847, waste + -rel (“(pejorative)”). (Wiktionary)
- wast(e) + -rel (as in scoundrel). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“wastrel" with a rifle, for his shy eyes gave the lie to his oily tongue.”
Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) Letters from the Front
“There might be problems with the fileshare site or your ability to access it, or with servers and attachment sizes, or with wastrel writers making cock-ups.”
“The play follows Hester's affair with former RAF pilot Freddie Page, who turns out to be a callow wastrel.”
“Mr. May interprets the parable of the Prodigal Son, for example, as not about divine forgiveness but about a father who happens to prefer his wastrel offspring to his dutiful brother.”
“A shrewd ruler, not a wastrel, though she worked her bed as no one before or since.”
“Roman tales of Cleopatra as louche and languid, a bedizened wastrel, are probably crudely slanted.”
“If anything is clear after last week's meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy it is that the Lady is not for turning from her mission to prevent the wastrel nations of the euro zone from feasting on the productivity and hard work of her voters.”
The Wall Street Journal: Global Markets Move, but Merkel Won't
“As almost every Christian knows, the story is about a father who forgives his wastrel son, a young man who has not only spent all that he has on fast living, but also has rejected the father.”
The Huffington Post: Rev. James Martin, S.J.: Rest In Peace Christopher Hitchens
“Put that notion on the table today and we could probably cut a half-trillion AT LEAST from that massive wastrel.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘wastrel’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 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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Fictional music genres
fudgepunk, whangboogie, electrogush, jizzbilly, glambient, queasy listening, chip shop, baroque'n'roll, prog folk, chemo, riant grrl, blingfolk and 584 more...
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scoundrels and bastards
already several of these lists, but I wanted my own
varlet, scoundrel, ne'er-do-well, cad, thug, churl, boor, hooligan, bastard, slubberdegullion, dastard, tosspot and 85 more...
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VOCUBLARY
purge, wield, remedy, shepherd, numen, bizarre, enamor, bigotry, tumult, commotion, agitate, rebuff and 8 more...
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Words That Can Be Typed Entirely With...
Words made of the following: qwertasdfgzxcvb. I've stood on the shoulders of giants... users mollusque and reesetee made similar lists before I even existed on Wordnik. :)
stewardesses, red tea, waves, axes, wrest, qat, waver, created, dressed, stress, crater, vexes and 50 more...
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~~Olde-Fashioned Insults~~
ragamuffin, muttonchops, tatterdemalion, nincompoop, whippersnapper, bootlicker, backscratcher, loggerhead, weisenheimer, hornswoggler, thimblerigger, quacksalver and 111 more...
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Words
My list of words.
veritable, facetious, nadir, quixotic, apropos, acquiesce, ostensible, insipid, egregious, inveterate, coax, adroit and 409 more...
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Unsavoury Types
insults, epithets, etc.
drotchel, drossel, drazel, flutch, lollard, scobberlotcher, ragabash, faineant, cad, buffoon, martinet, tosspot and 116 more...
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NTDW1
template, modal, sublingual, tandem, polycentric, septuagenarian, token, irrevocable, denotive, augural, aberrant, phlebotomy and 1188 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
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harrisj's Words
skeumorph, liminal, enervated, essential, moiety, motley, haphazard, bone-picker, resolute, petard, jigsaw, schism and 117 more...
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Oh them words, them words
My fancies, my cudgels.
liquescent, ferly, lamia, basilisk, trigon, fantast, stirp, tristesse, enfleurage, stemma, formicary, lacrimation and 346 more...
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lee_d's Words
neologism, epicaricacy, chillax, arrears, locution, ressentiment, facticity, glib, escritoire, epicurian, alacrity, arbitrageur and 150 more...
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Tory's First Wordie List
perambulate, mumpsimus, euphoric, peripatetic, mellifluous, soporific, neologism, nihilism, nepotism, effervescent, lascivious, esoteric and 217 more...
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Dictionary.com Words of the Days of 2000
1999 · 2000 · 2001 · 2002 · 2003 · 2004 · 2005 · 2006 · 2007 · 2008
segue, palimpsest, bête noire, farrago, expatiate, nadir, protean, fulsome, constitutional, quondam, sinecure, vainglory and 324 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for wastrel.

frogapplause Go birch yourself, yarb. Feb 26, 2010
yarb I am the village wastrel. Feb 26, 2010
frogapplause Yarb birched the village wastrel. Feb 26, 2010
madmouth almost synonymous with 'rich man's son' Apr 13, 2009
nicsims a wasteful person Sep 16, 2007