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'Tis the cruel gripe, / That lean hard-handed poverty inflicts, / The hope of better things, the chance to win, / The wiſh to ſhine, the thirſt to be amus'd, / That at the found of Winter's hoary wing, / Unpeople all our counties, of ſuch herds, / Of flutt'ring, loit'ring, cringing, begging, looſe, / And wanton vagrants, as make London, vaſt / And boundless as it is, a crowded coop.
1776, Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, volume 1:
The grave simplicity of the philosopher was ill calculated to engage her wanton levity, or to fix that unbounded passion for variety, which often discovered personal merit in the meanest of mankind.
if wenches will hang out lures for fellows, it is no matter what they suffer: I detest such creatures; and it would be much better for them that their faces had been seamed with the smallpox: but I must confess I never saw any of this wanton behaviour in poor Jenny [...].
I know I ought never to have dreamt of sending that valentine—forgive me, sir—it was a wanton thing which no woman with any self-respect should have done.
People should not marry too young, because, if they do, the children will be weak and female, the wives will become wanton, and the husbands stunted in their growth.
Capricious, reckless of morality, justice etc.; acting without regard for the law or the well-being of others; gratuitous.
Edward himself, now thoroughly enlightened on her character, had no scruple in believing her capable of the utmost meanness of wanton ill-nature.
2009 August 10, Ben White, The Guardian:
these developments in Gaza are a consequence of the state of siege that the tiny territory has been under – a society that has been fenced-in, starved, and seen its very fabric torn apart by unemployment and wanton military destruction.
the market price will rise more or less above the natural price, according as either the greatness of the deficiency, or the wealth and wanton luxury of the competitors, happen to animate more or less the eagerness of the competition.
1876 January 19, John Ruskin, Letters:
But do not think it argues change of temper since I wrote the Frère review, or a wanton praise of one man and blame of another.
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c.1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):
I would have thee gone — / And yet no farther than a wanton's bird, / That lets it hop a little from her hand, / Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves, / And with a silken thread plucks it back again[…]
Peace, my wantons; he will do / More than you can aim unto.
1898, George Gissing, Charles Dickens: A Critical Study:
This quiet remark serves to remind one, among other things that, Dickens was not without his reasons for a spirit of distrust towards religion by law established, as well as towards sundry other forms of religion--the spirit which, especially in his early career, was often misunderstood as hostility to religion in itself, a wanton mocking at sacred things.
1891, Mrs. Oliphant, Jerusalem: Its History and Hope:
...paints with tremendous force the adulteries of the two wantons Aholah and Aholibah, Israel and Judah, and their love of strangers...
1936, Anthony Bertram, Like the Phoenix:
However, terrible as it may seem to the tall maiden sisters of J.P.'s in Queen Anne houses with walled vegetable gardens, this courtesan, strumpet, harlot, whore, punk, fille de joie, street-walker, this trollop, this trull, this baggage, this hussy, this drab, skit, rig, quean, mopsy, demirep, demimondaine, this wanton, this fornicatress, this doxy, this concubine, this frail sister, this poor Queenie—did actually solicit me, did actually say ‘coming home to-night, dearie’ and my soul was not blasted enough to call a policeman.
[…] We will fetch thee straight / Adonis painted by a running brook, / And Cytherea all in sedges hid, / Which seem to move and wanton with her breath / Even as the waving sedges play wi’ th’ wind.
1667, John Milton, “Book V”, in Paradise Lost., London: [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker; nd by Robert Boulter; nd Matthias Walker,, →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books:, London: Basil Montagu Pickering, 1873, →OCLC, lines 294-296:
[…] Nature here / Wantond as in her prime, and plaid at will / Her Virgin Fancies […]
And never would he wanton his cause away with wine.
1948, Digby George Gerahty (as Robert Standish), Elephant Walk, New York: Macmillan, 1949, Chapter 15, p. 214,
If either of us felt the respect for George that you imply by your manner, you know perfectly well that we wouldn’t have wantoned away the day as we have.
[…] whole herds or flocks of other women securely, and scarce regarded, traverse the park, the play, the opera, and the assembly; and though, for the most part at least, they are at last devoured, yet for a long time do they wanton in liberty, without disturbance or controul.