Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The quality of being prodigal; extravagance in expenditure, particularly of money; profusion; waste.
  • noun Excessive or profuse liberality.
  • noun Synonyms Wastefulness, lavishness, squandering. See extravagant.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Extravagance in expenditure, particularly of money; excessive liberality; profusion; waste; -- opposed to frugality, economy, and parsimony.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun wasteful extravagance
  • noun lavish generosity

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun excessive spending
  • noun the trait of spending extravagantly

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • Has she not bestowed on him every gift in prodigality?

    I.6 1826

  • 83 But this vain prodigality, which the prudence of Diocletian might justly despise, was enjoyed with surprise and transport by the Roman people.

    The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 1206

  • She there appears surrounded by the luxuriance of vegetable life: she pours forth her bounty with a profusion which the partizans of utility would call prodigality, and covers the earth with a splendour of beauty, which serves no other purpose than to minister to the delight of human existence.

    Travels in France during the years 1814-15 Comprising a residence at Paris, during the stay of the allied armies, and at Aix, at the period of the landing of Bonaparte, in two volumes. Archibald Alison 1829

  • But his prodigality, which is excessive, after a time brought him to London; and the bishop imagined that, with his help, my scruples would at last be conquered.

    The Adventures of Hugh Trevor Thomas Holcroft 1777

  • I regarded _tragic_ knowledge as the most beautiful luxury of our culture, as its most precious, most noble, most dangerous kind of prodigality; but, nevertheless, in view of its overflowing wealth, as a justifiable _luxury_.

    The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche 1872

  • Further, prodigality and meanness are excesses and defects with regard to wealth; and meanness we always impute to those who care more than they ought for wealth, but we sometimes apply the word 'prodigality' in a complex sense; for we call those men prodigals who are incontinent and spend money on self-indulgence.

    The NICOMACHEAN ETHICS Aristotle 1865

  • This, then, is the sense in which we take the word 'prodigality'.

    The NICOMACHEAN ETHICS Aristotle 1865

  • _Academic_ original after Raleigh's consignment to the Tower, -- in that fierce satire into which so much Elizabethan bitterness is condensed, under the difference of the reckless prodigality which is stereotyped in the fable, we get, in the earlier scenes, some glimpses of this

    The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded Delia Bacon 1835

  • The presumptuous weak who mistake the wish of distinction for the workings of talent, admire the eccentricities of the gifted youth who is reared in opulence, and, mistaking the prodigality which is only the effect of his fortune, for the attributes of his talents, imitate his errors, and imagine that, by copying the blemishes of his conduct, they possess what is illustrious in his mind.

    The Life Studies And Works Of Benjamin West Esq Galt, John 1820

  • The presumptuous weak who mistake the wish of distinction for the workings of talent, admire the eccentricities of the gifted youth who is reared in opulence, and, mistaking the prodigality which is only the effect of his fortune, for the attributes of his talents, imitate his errors, and imagine that, by copying the blemishes of his conduct, they possess what is illustrious in his mind.

    The Life, Studies, and Works of Benjamin West, Esq. Composed from Materials Furnished by Himself John Galt 1809

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