profligate

• POS: Adjective, Noun
• HYPHEN: prof=li=gate

CIDE DICTIONARY

profligate, a. [L. profligatus, p. p. of profligare to strike or dash to the ground, to destroy; pro before + a word akin to fligere to strike. See Afflict.].

•  Overthrown; beaten; conquered.  [1913 Webster]

  "The foe is profligate, and run."  [1913 Webster]
•  Broken down in respect of rectitude, principle, virtue, or decency; openly and shamelessly immoral or vicious; dissolute; as, profligate man or wretch.  [1913 Webster]

  "A race more profligate than we."  [1913 Webster]

  "Made prostitute and profligate muse."  [1913 Webster]

Syn. -- Abandoned; corrupt; dissolute; vitiated; depraved; vicious; wicked. See Abandoned.

profligate, n. 

 An abandoned person; one openly and shamelessly vicious; a dissolute person.  Swift.  [1913 Webster]

profligate, v. t. 

 To drive away; to overcome.
"[A Latinism]"  Harvey.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

profligate, adj. & n.
--adj.
1 licentious; dissolute.
2 recklessly extravagant.
--n. a profligate person.

Derivative

profligacy n. profligately adv.

Etymology

L profligatus dissolute, past part. of profligare overthrow, ruin (as PRO-(1), fligere strike down)

THESAURUS

profligate

Casanova, Don Juan, Lothario, abandoned, backslider, bad egg, bad lot, black sheep, carnal, contaminated, corrupt, corrupted, debased, debauched, debauchee, decadent, degenerate, degraded, depraved, dissipated, dissipative, dissolute, easy come, easy go, erotic, evil, excessive, extravagant, fallen angel, fast, free, gallant, gay, gay deceiver, gay dog, good-for-nothing, immoderate, immoral, improvident, incontinent, indecent, iniquitous, intemperate, lady-killer, lascivious, lavish, lecher, lecherous, lewd, libertine, licentious, loose, lost sheep, lost soul, lover-boy, miscreant, morally polluted, no-good, overgenerous, overlavish, overliberal, penny-wise and pound-foolish, pervert, perverted, philanderer, pimp, polluted, pound-foolish, prodigal, profuse, promiscuous, rake, rakehell, rakehellish, rakehelly, rakish, recidivist, reckless, recreant, reprobate, rip, rotten, roue, rounder, scapegrace, sensual, sensualist, shameless, sinful, sinner, skirt chaser, sodomite, sorry lot, spender, spendthrift, squanderer, squandering, steeped in iniquity, swinger, sybarite, sybaritic, tainted, trollop, unbridled, unprincipled, unrestrained, vice-corrupted, vitiated, voluptuary, voluptuous, walking phallus, wanton, warped, wasteful, waster, wastethrift, wastrel, whore, whoremonger, wicked, wild, wolf, woman chaser, womanizer

ROGET THESAURUS

profligate

Vice

N vice, evil-doing, evil courses, wrongdoing, wickedness, viciousness, iniquity, peccability, demerit, sin, Adam, old Adam, offending Adam, immorality, impropriety, indecorum, scandal, laxity, looseness of morals, enphagy, dophagy, exophagy, want of principle, want of ballast, obliquity, backsliding, infamy, demoralization, pravity, depravity, pollution, hardness of heart, brutality, corruption, knavery, profligacy, flagrancy, atrocity, cannibalism, lesbianism, Sadism, infirmity, weakness, weakness of the flesh, frailty, imperfection, error, weak side, foible, failing, failure, crying sin, besetting sin, defect, deficiency, cloven foot, lowest dregs of vice, sink of iniquity, Alsatian den, gusto picaresco, fault, crime, criminality, sinner, brothel, gambling house, joint, opium den, shooting gallery, crack house, vicious, sinful, sinning, wicked, iniquitous, immoral, unrighteous, wrong, criminal, naughty, incorrect, unduteous, undutiful, unprincipled, lawless, disorderly, contra bonos mores, indecorous, unseemly, improper, dissolute, profligate, scampish, unworthy, worthless, desertless, disgraceful, recreant, reprehensible, blameworthy, uncommendable, discreditable, disreputable, Sadistic, base, sinister, scurvy, foul, gross, vile, black, grave, facinorous, felonious, nefarious, shameful, scandalous, infamous, villainous, of a deep dye, heinous, flagrant, flagitious, atrocious, incarnate, accursed, Mephistophelian, satanic, diabolic, hellish, infernal, stygian, fiendlike, hell-born, demoniacal, devilish, fiendish, miscreated, misbegotten, demoralized, corrupt, depraved, evil-minded, evil-disposed, ill-conditioned, malevolent, heartless, graceless, shameless, virtueless, abandoned, lost to virtue, unconscionable, sunk in iniquity, lost in iniquity, steeped in iniquity, incorrigible, irreclaimable, obdurate, reprobate, past praying for, culpable, reprehensible, unjustifiable, indefensible, inexcusable, inexpiable, unpardonable, irremissible, weak, frail, lax, infirm, imperfect, indiscrete, demoralizing, degrading, wrong, sinfully, without excuse, Int, O tempora!, O mores!, alitur vitium vivitque tegendo, genus est mortis male vivere, mala mens malus animus, nemo repente fuit turpissimus, the trail of the serpent is over them all, to sanction vice and hunt decorum down.