profligate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin prōflīgātus (“overthrown, ruined, dissolute, depraved”),^[2][3][4][5] the past participle of prōflīgō (“to defeat, crush, ruin”),^[2][6][7] formed from prō- (“forward, down”) and flīgō (“to strike”).^[2][3][6][8] The American Heritage Dictionary and Barnhart see the second part as an intensive form of that verb.^[7][4] The OED refers it to the same Indo-European base as Ancient Greek φλίβω (phlíbō, “to rub, chafe”), and perhaps Latvian blaīzīt (“to crush, strike”).^[2] The verb profligate, recorded from 1542, is from the past participial stem of that verb.^[2][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Overthrown, routed: 1535, in a letter of T. Legh and J. Rice quoted in Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials.^[2][4] Etymonline dates it to the 1520s, and Dictionary.com has 1525–35.^[3][9]

Semantic evolution

As Ayto says, something profligate has etymologically been beaten down, to a state of ruin or degradation.^[6] The Latin participle had already gone from "overthrown" to "dissolute", and Weekley compares the development of abandoned, dissolute and roué.^[10][2] English first took the physical sense, which died out by 1663, and then the moral one, "given to licentiousness".^[2][8] This is the sense in Johnson (1755), who defines the adjective as "abandoned; lost to virtue and decency; shameless" and the noun as "an abandoned shameless wretch".^[11] From the 18th century "ruined in morals" narrowed to "ruinously wasteful, especially with money", and this is now the main sense.^[2][3] The verb followed long after, as "to waste by reckless use" in 1938; post-classical Latin already had this sense for the verb, from Tertullian on, but the English use is modern.^[2]

Timeline

• 1535 – overthrown, routed (obsolete by 1663).^[2][4]
• 1542 – verb, to dispel or overcome (obsolete by 1845).^[2][12]
• 1548 – verb, to defeat an enemy (obsolete by 1724).^[2]
• 1627 – given to licentiousness, debauched.^[2] Barnhart dates it to 1647 and Etymonline to the 1640s.^[4][3]
• 1679 – noun, a profligate person.^[2][12] Barnhart and Etymonline date it to 1709, in Swift.^[4][3]
• 1718 – recklessly extravagant, especially with money.^[2] Etymonline dates it by 1779.^[3]
• 1738 – the noun profligacy.^[4]
• 1938 – verb, to waste by reckless use.^[2]
• 1953 – lacking in moderation, abundant.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Recklessly extravagant or wasteful, especially with money: a profligate government that spent its reserves in a year.^{[12][7][13][14]}
2. Given up to vice; shamelessly immoral or licentious: the profligate life of the old court.^{[12][7][13][14]}
3. Abundant; lacking in moderation.^[2]
4. (obsolete, 1535–1663) Overthrown, routed.^[2][8]

Noun

1. A person who is wasteful with money or dissolute in behaviour.^{[12][7][13][14]}

Verb

1. To waste by reckless use or spending.^[2]
2. (obsolete) To defeat, overcome or drive away.^[12][8][2]

Word family

• profligacy
• profligately
• profligateness

Related words

• afflict
• conflict
• inflict

Usage notes

In dialect, profligate meant a person who had become a beggar without necessarily being of bad character, in Ulster, and "prolific", of potatoes, in Shropshire.^[15]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
7. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)