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View synonyms for profligate

profligate

[ prof-li-git, -geyt ]

adjective

  1. utterly and shamelessly immoral or dissipated; thoroughly dissolute.

    Synonyms: licentious, abandoned

  2. recklessly prodigal or extravagant.


noun

  1. a profligate person.

profligate

/ ˈprɒflɪɡəsɪ; ˈprɒflɪɡɪt /

adjective

  1. shamelessly immoral or debauched
  2. wildly extravagant or wasteful
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


noun

  1. a profligate person
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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Derived Forms

  • profligacy, noun
  • ˈprofligately, adverb
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Other Words From

  • profli·gate·ly adverb
  • profli·gate·ness noun
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Word History and Origins

Origin of profligate1

1525–35; < Latin prōflīgātus broken down in character, degraded, originally past participle of prōflīgāre to shatter, debase, equivalent to prō- pro- 1 + -flīgāre, derivative of flīgere to strike; inflict, -ate 1
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Word History and Origins

Origin of profligate1

C16: from Latin prōflīgātus corrupt, from prōflīgāre to overthrow, from pro- 1+ flīgere to beat
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Example Sentences

Perhaps you’re a mattress retailer masquerading as a tech company, or a profligate real estate company masquerading as a tech company.

From Quartz

Each year, Coburn picked out examples like this study to suggest that the government was profligate with tax dollars.

NFTs have also been criticized for their profligate energy consumption, because they depend on a lot of computer power to encrypt their tokens.

That provision has already sparked substantial controversy among congressional Republicans, who have for months denounced aid for these governments as “bailouts” for profligate Democratic lawmakers.

As understandable from an industry perspective as this practice may have been, profligate use of these vital medications must end.

Moreover, the settlements rely for their subsistence on profligate funding and services provided by the state of Israel.

The same day, one of the most reckless and profligate home lenders reported far less impressive results.

During the cold war he was, in a sense, on the left—he regarded it as a profligate waste of American resources.

And nothing offends those sensibilities more profoundly than profligate spending and runaway debt.

But Pujol senior, though wondering where the devil he had fished all that money from, did not waste it in profligate revelry.

Thus died the gay and profligate Buckingham, in the thirty-seventh year of his age.

Later, his morals grew corrupt, and he lived a profligate life until he became a convert of the Manicheans at the age of nineteen.

But he was such a profligate in his morals, that his name cannot be mentioned with anything like tolerance.

He returned in the evenings from the haunts of vice, where he made her understand he had been, with manners so profligate!

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