profligate
- adjective
- /ˈprɒflɪɡɪt/
- Formal
- His profligate spending habits led him to accumulate significant debt, causing financial trouble.
- profligate spending
- profligate use
Nature is profligate with variation, you know.
- Nature is profligate with variation, you know.
- But I look, you know, for centuries, governments have been profligate with our money.
- I don't know the way you think, but I think that that sounds a little bit profligate and probably God had better things to do than to do this.
- Yeah, it's profligate, it's rich, it's enormously, enormously living.
Examples
-
The Fed is not the only bank to engage in such profligate policies either.
Blog text (16) -
At a time of profligate federal spending, only the Department of Defense's budget is constrained.
Academic text (2010) -
There has been an economic boom inside Iran, but this has been based upon profligate but finite government spending.
Academic text (2007) -
Or will the prospect of geoengineering allow us to continue our profligate ways?
Academic text (2010) -
To critics, those deals were evidence that GM was profligate and management cared about nothing but its annual bonuses.
Academic text (2011) -
Dinah Craik turned to writing to support herself and her siblings after her profligate Irish father abandoned the family.
Academic text (2007) -
The stimulus was mainly spending to prop up profligate states and transfer payments to lower-income people.
Blog text (7) -
Adding to the public's frustration was the shah's profligate lifestyle and all-pervasive influence.
Academic text (2008) -
The company's profligate use of resources resulted in massive waste and environmental degradation.
-
Many criticized the senator for his profligate lifestyle, which seemed out of touch with the struggles of his constituents.
Synonyms
Using more money or things than you need
Not following normal moral rules and behaving badly
Spending money or things freely and carelessly
Spending much more money than is needed
A person who lives in a wild way and ignores rules about right and wrong
Behaving in a wild way that breaks social rules
Living in a way that enjoys a lot of sex and other pleasures without caring what is right
Spending money in a careless, wasteful way
Spends money or other resources in a careless way
A person who likes to buy expensive things
Not careful with money, spending more than needed
Spending money or using things in a wasteful way
A person who spends health and money on pleasure without self control
Antonyms
How Wasteful
Surface Forms
Etymology
Profligate comes from a Latin word made of pro- and fligare, which meant 'to ruin' and is related to English words like afflict and conflict that carry the idea of 'strike' or 'harm'. So to be profligate is to waste or 'ruin' money or resources by spending too much.