wastrel

English

Etymology

1847, waste +‎ -rel (“(pejorative)”).[1]

Noun

wastrel (plural wastrels)

  1. (dated) One who is profligate, who wastes time or resources extravagantly.
    • 1929, Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own, Penguin Books, paperback edition, page 22
      Mary's mother - if that was her picture - may have been a wastrel in her spare time (she had thirteen children by a minister of the church), but if so her gay and dissipated life had left too few traces of its pleasures on her face.

Synonyms

  • See also Thesaurus:spendthrift

References

  1. ↑ “wastrel” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2018.

Anagrams

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