profligate
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈpɹɒflɪɡət/
enpr: prŏʹflĭgət
ipa: /ˈpɹɑːflɪɡət/
Forms: form: more profligate
form: most profligate
Etymology: The adjective is first attested in 1535, the verb in 1542; borrowed from Latin prōflīgātus, perfect passive participle of prōflīgō (“to strike down, cast down”) (see -ate (etymology 1, 2 an 3)), from prō- (“forward”) + flīgō (“to strike, dash”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix). Common participial usage of the adjective up until Early Modern English.
Senses: examples: text: [H]er Reputation—That—I have no Reaſon to believe is in Queſtion—But then hovv long her profligate Courſe of Pleaſures may make her able to keep it—is a ſhocking Queſtion! and her Preſumption VVhile ſhe keeps it—inſupportable!
ref: 1728, John Vanbrugh, Colley Cibber, The Provok’d Husband; or, A Journey to London. A Comedy, […], London: […] J[ohn] Watts, […], →OCLC, Act I, page 1:
text: His undignified and profligate exile—needy suitor to-day to the only heiress of the royal French blood, and to-morrow to one of the nieces of the Italian adventurer, Mazarin. Utterly neglectful of what he owes to the kingdom which he hopes to regain, Charles has learned but adversity's worst lesson—expediency.
ref: 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXIII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 258:
text: Jay Rodriguez headed over and Dani Osvaldo might have done better with only David De Gea to beat and, as Southampton bordered on the profligate, United were far more ruthless.
ref: 2013 October 19, Ben Smith, BBC Sport:
text: This luxury-loving and profligate shell company is registered at a betting shop on the Caledonian Road, an unlovely thoroughfare in North London on which you'd be more likely to find amphetamines than a top-notch lawyer.
ref: 2018, Oliver Bullough, chapter 4, in Moneyland, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 65:
synonyms: word: extravagant
word: wasteful
word: prodigal
word: extravagant
word: improvident
word: imprudent
word: lavish
word: prodigal
word: profligate
word: reckless
word: spendthrift
word: squandering
word: uneconomical
word: unthrifty
word: wasteful
glosses: Inclined to waste resources or behave extravagantly.
examples: text: Made prostitute and profligate the muse.
ref: 1685, John Dryden, To The Pious Memory of the Accomplish'd Young Lady Mrs. Anne Killigrew:
text: Time ſenſibly all things impairs; / Our fathers have been worſe than theirs; / And we than ours; next age will ſee / A race more profligate than we / (With all the pains we take) have ſkill enough to be.
ref: a. 1686, Earl of Roscommon [i.e., Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon]; Samuel Johnson, “The Sixth Ode of the Third Book of Horace”, in The Works of the English Poets. With Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, […], volumes X (The Poems of Rochester, Roscommon, and Yalden), London: […] E. Cox; for C. Bathurst, […], published 1779, page 257, →OCLC:
synonyms: immoral
licentious
glosses: Immoral; abandoned to vice.
examples: text: The Canon laws […] with their Author, are profligate out of this realm.
ref: 1535, Thomas Legh and John Prise, Letter to Cromwell (in John Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials (1721)), I. App. lvii. 145:
text: By whiche onely policie, the kynges armie was profligate and dispersed.
ref: 1548, Edward Hall, Hall's Chronicle (Hall's Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancastre and Yorke), Henry VI. 168:
qualifier: obsolete senses
glosses: Profligated: routed, overcome, driven away.
raw_tags: as a participle
examples: text: The foe is profligate, and run.
ref: 1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, 1905, →OCLC:
qualifier: obsolete senses
glosses: Overthrown, ruined.
raw_tags: as a participial adjective
Derived terms: profligacy
profligately
profligateness