Profligacy
noun ·Uncommon ·College level
Definitions
- 1 Careless wastefulness. countable
"No question has arisen within the records of history that pressed with the importance of the present.[…]whether man shall inherit his rights, and universal civilisation take place? Whether the fruits of his labours shall be enjoyed by himself or consumed by the profligacy of governments?"
- 2 dissolute indulgence in sensual pleasure wordnet
- 3 Shameless and immoral behaviour. uncountable
"He had, indeed, reduced several women to a state of utter profligacy, had broke the hearts of some, and had the honour of occasioning the violent death of one poor girl, who had either drowned herself, or, what was rather more probable, had been drowned by him."
- 4 the trait of spending extravagantly wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"The profligacy that made him the most popular boy in his set eventually led to his family abruptly calling him home."
Etymology
From profligate + -cy.
More for "profligacy"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.