profligate

/prof-li-git/

Other forms: profligates

Profligate, as a noun or as an adjective, implies recklessly wasting your money on extravagant luxury. Profligate behavior is a lot of fun, but you'll regret it later — when you get your charge card bill.

Any time someone behaves in a reckless, amoral, or wasteful way, they are engaging in profligate behavior. It usually refers to financial behavior but can cross over to social activity as well. A person who is a slave to their cravings and whose behavior is unrestrained and selfish can be called a profligate. Extravagantly profligate behavior is often wildly fun but usually comes with a heavy price to pay in the morning, both financially and morally.

Definitions of profligate

1. adjective

   unrestrained by convention or morality
   synonyms: debauched, degenerate, degraded, dissipated, dissolute, fast, libertine, riotous

   immoral

   deliberately violating accepted principles of right and wrong
2. adjective

   recklessly wasteful
   synonyms: extravagant, prodigal, spendthrift

   wasteful

   tending to squander and waste
3. noun

   a dissolute man in fashionable society
   synonyms: blood, rake, rakehell, rip, roue

   type of:

   debauchee, libertine, rounder

   a dissolute person; usually a man who is morally unrestrained
4. noun

   a recklessly extravagant consumer
   synonyms: prodigal, squanderer

   types:

   scattergood, spend-all, spender, spendthrift

   someone who spends money prodigally

   waster, wastrel

   someone who dissipates resources self-indulgently

   big spender, high roller

   one who spends lavishly and ostentatiously on entertainment

   type of:

   consumer

   a person who uses goods or services