prodigality

Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word prodigality. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word prodigality, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say prodigality in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word prodigality you have here. The definition of the word prodigality will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofprodigality, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.

English

Etymology

From prodigal +‎ -ity, from Old French prodigalite, from Late Latin prodigalitas.

Noun

prodigality (countable and uncountable, plural prodigalities)

  1. Wasteful extravagance.
    • 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXII, in Romance and Reality. , volume II, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, , →OCLC, page 339:
      The plain where he was riding was one immense thicket of the gum cistus, whose frail white leaves, just veined with the faintest pink, fell in showers at the least movement of the passer-by. What a prodigality of blossom!—for the gum cistus, born and withered in an hour, is the most ephemeral of flowers.
    • 1921, Ben Travers, chapter 2, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:
      Mother [] considered that the exclusiveness of Peter's circle was due not to its distinction, but to the fact that it was an inner Babylon of prodigality and whoredom, from which every Kensingtonian held aloof, except on the conventional tip-and-run excursions in pursuit of shopping, tea and theatres.
  2. Lavish generosity.

Translations