profligate

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 pro- (“forward”) + fligō (“to strike, dash”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix). Common participial usage of the adjective up until Early Modern English.

adjective, noun

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈpɹɒflɪɡət/
• (US) enPR: prŏʹflĭgət, IPA^(key): /ˈpɹɑːflɪɡət/

• Audio (US):

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verb

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈpɹɒflɪɡeɪt/
• (US) enPR: prŏʹflĭgāt, IPA^(key): /ˈpɹɑːflɪɡeɪt/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

profligate (comparative more profligate, superlative most profligate)

1. Inclined to waste resources or behave extravagantly.

   Synonyms: extravagant, wasteful, prodigal; see also Thesaurus:prodigal

   • 1728, John Vanbrugh, Colley Cibber, The Provok’d Husband; or, A Journey to London. A Comedy, , London: J Watts, , →OCLC, Act I, page 1:

     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!

   • 1834, L E L, chapter XXIII, in Francesca Carrara.  In Three Volumes.">…], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, , (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 258:

     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.

   • 2013 October 19, Ben Smith, BBC Sport:

     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.

   • 2018, Oliver Bullough, chapter 4, in Moneyland, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 65:

     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.

2. Immoral; abandoned to vice.

   Synonyms: immoral, licentious

   • 1685, John Dryden, To The Pious Memory of the Accomplish'd Young Lady Mrs. Anne Killigrew:

     Made prostitute and profligate the muse.

   • a. 1686, 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,  Buckland, W Strahan, J. Rivington and Sons, T. Davies, T. Payne, L. Davis, W. Owen, B. White, S. Crowder, T. Caslon, T Longman, B. Law, E. and C. Dilly, J Dodsley, H. Baldwin, J. Wilkie, J. Robson, J Johnson, T. Lowndes, T. Becket, G. Robinson, T Cadell, W Davies, J Nichols, F Newbery, T. Evans, J. Ridley, R. Baldwin, G. Nicol, Leigh and Sotheby, J. Bew, N. Conant, J Murray, W. Fox, J. Bowen.">…], published 1779, page 257, →OCLC:

     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.

3. (obsolete senses)
   1. (as a participle) Profligated: routed, overcome, driven away.
      • 1535, Thomas Legh and John Prise, Letter to Cromwell (in John Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials (1721)), I. App. lvii. 145:

        The Canon laws with their Author, are profligate out of this realm.

      • 1548, Edward Hall, Hall's Chronicle (Hall's Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancastre and Yorke), Henry VI. 168:

        By whiche onely policie, the kynges armie was profligate and dispersed.

   2. (as a participial adjective) Overthrown, ruined.
      • 1662 (indicated as 1663), , “”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. , London: N for">…] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, , published 1678; republished in A R Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, 1905, →OCLC:

        The foe is profligate, and run.

profligate (plural profligates)

1. An abandoned person; one openly and shamelessly vicious; a dissolute person.
   • 2010 October 19, Obsidian Entertainment, Fallout: New Vegas, Bethesda Softworks, level/area: Nelson:

     Have you come to Nelson seeking your death, profligate?

2. An overly wasteful or extravagant individual.

   Synonyms: wastrel; see also Thesaurus:spendthrift, Thesaurus:prodigal

   • 1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, London: Pan Books, published 1954, page 152:

     He proposed to call witnesses to show how the prisoner, a profligate and spendthrift, had been at the end of his financial tether, and had also been carrying on an intrigue with a certain Mrs. Raikes, a neighbouring farmer’s wife.

profligate (third-person singular simple present profligates, present participle profligating, simple past and past participle profligated)

1. (obsolete) To drive away; to overcome.
   • 1840, Alexander Walker, Woman Physiologically Considered as to Mind, Morals, Marriage, Matrimonial Slavery, Infidelity and Divorce, page 157:

     Such a stipulation would remove one powerful temptation to profligate pennyless seducers, of whom there are too many prowling in the higher circles ;

• profligation

• “profligate”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E Smith, editors (1911), “profligate”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

prōflīgāte

1. vocative masculine singular of prōflīgātus