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to make ducks and drakes

to make ducks and drakes

9.9
To waste money or other things by being careless
  • idiom
  • Archaic
translation icon : malgastar
  • After receiving his inheritance, Tom began to make ducks and drakes of his fortune.

Examples

  • Don't make ducks and drakes of your savings!

  • The committee warned the manager against making ducks and drakes of the company’s budget.

  • She regretted making ducks and drakes of her opportunities in youth.

  • He often makes ducks and drakes of his money.

  • She regretted making ducks and drakes of her opportunities in youth.

  • The committee warned the manager against making ducks and drakes of the company’s budget.

  • After receiving his inheritance, Tom began to make ducks and drakes of his fortune.

Synonyms

to waste
vsto make ducks and drakes
∞ 1.0

To use or spend something carelessly and without good reason

adds a sense of foolish recklessness rather than just general carelessness
to squander
vsto make ducks and drakes
67 6.5

To use money, time, or chances in a foolish way

is an idiomatic expression for that same reckless wasting
to fritter away
vsto make ducks and drakes
4 6.0

Waste time or money on small unimportant things

describes the same loss but as reckless and often larger in scale
to dissipate
vsto make ducks and drakes
3 7.0

To use money or energy in a foolish, wasteful way

puts more stress on reckless, extravagant loss rather than mere consumption
to drain resources
vsto make ducks and drakes
2 4.6

To use up the money or help someone needs

is more about sudden or reckless wasting rather than steady depletion
to misspend
vsto make ducks and drakes
1 6.5

To spend time or money in a wasteful way

emphasises reckless squandering rather than simply wrong spending choices
to fool away
vsto make ducks and drakes
8.1

To waste time, money, or chances by being careless

focuses more on bold, reckless squandering rather than mere carelessness
to pour down the drain
vsto make ducks and drakes
  • Informal
6.0

Lose money, time, or effort by wasting it so it cannot be used

portrays that loss as the result of foolish, reckless action rather than accident

Antonyms

to invest
715 3.5

To put money, time, or effort into something hoping for a future benefit

How Wasteful

to make ducks and drakes
  • Archaic
9.9
to blow
  • Informal
265 5.3
to waste
∞ 1.0
to spend
∞ 1.0
to save
842 1.0

Surface Forms

make ducks and drakes infinitive
made ducks and drakes past
made ducks and drakes past participle
making ducks and drakes present participle
makes ducks and drakes third person singular

Morphology

make + ducks + and + drakes

The sense 'to waste or squander' is not derivable from the literal constituents: 'ducks' and 'drakes' are concrete birds and provide no semantic cue to wastefulness, and 'make' simply indicates causation. The phrase is idiomatic and historically/ culturally specific (and now somewhat archaic), so a B1 learner who knows the words would not predict the figurative meaning without prior exposure.

Etymology

Make ducks and drakes may come from a childish game of skipping flat stones across a pond, where each splash was called a 'duck' or a 'drake' and the best stones were quickly used up or lost. That's why the phrase came to mean 'to waste or squander' money or other things.