Quizzes & Games
Word of the Day
Video
New Words
My Favorites
View your list of saved words.
(You can log in using Facebook.)

prodigal
About Our Definitions: All forms of a word (noun, verb, etc.) are now displayed on one page.

¹prod·i·gal

adjective \ˈprä-di-gəl\

: characterized by profuse or wasteful expenditure : lavish <a prodigal feast> <prodigal outlays for her clothes>

: recklessly spendthrift <the prodigal prince>

: yielding abundantly : luxuriant —often used with of <nature has been so prodigal of her bounty — H. T. Buckle>

— prod·i·gal·i·ty \ˌprä-də-ˈga-lə-tē\ noun

— prod·i·gal·ly \ˈprä-di-g(ə-)lē\ adverb

<the prodigal child always spent her allowance the minute she got it>
We sipped our beers and wondered at one another, at what was left of all that and of those prodigal days. —Michael Chabon, A Model World and Other Stories, 1991
Mr. Bulstrode replied without haste, but also without hesitation. “I am grieved, though, I confess, not surprised by this information, Mr. Lydgate. For my own part, I regretted your alliance with my brother-in-law's family, which has always been of prodigal habits, and which has already been much indebted to me for sustainment in its present position…” —George Eliot, Middlemarch, 1872
The prodigal use of antibiotics in animals has the same consequence as their overprescription for human beings. —Cullen Murphy, New York Times Book Review, 10 June l984
[+]more [-]hide

Latin prodigus, from prodigere to drive away, squander, from pro-, prod- forth + agere to drive — more at pro-, agent

First Known Use: 15th century

Synonyms: extravagant, high-rolling, profligate, spendthrift, squandering, thriftless, unthrifty, wasteful

Antonyms: conserving, economical, economizing, frugal, penny-pinching, scrimping, skimping, thrifty

See Synonym Discussion at profuse

noun \ˈprä-di-gəl\

: one who spends or gives lavishly and foolishly

: one who has returned after an absence

<the million-dollar lottery winner was such a prodigal that his windfall was exhausted after only a few years>
Such a trustee had been first instituted by the praetor, to save a family from the blind havoc of a prodigal or madman… —Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1788