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spendthrift

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Etymology and origin of the English word spendthrift

Confidence
Established
Formation
Compound
First attested
1601 P. Holland, translation of Pliny More words from the 17th century
Ultimate origins
Latin spendereOld Norse þrífaskEnglish -t
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
English spend
English spendthrift

Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈspɛn(d)θɹɪft/[1]
  • US: /ˈspɛn(d)ˌθɹɪft/[1]

Etymology

It is formed from English spend + thrift,[2][3][4][5][6][7] with the second element in its old sense of savings, profits or accumulated wealth, now obsolete.[2][3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Someone who spends money wastefully or wastes an inheritance: 1601, in P. Holland's translation of Pliny.[5] Etymonline dates the noun to about 1600,[2] Dictionary.com to 1595–1605,[7] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives 1584.[4]

Semantic evolution

The compound replaced the earlier scattergood (1570s) and spend-all (1550s), according to Etymonline,[2] and the OED compares dingthrift, recorded for a wasteful person from 1566.[5] The sense "habit of saving" of thrift is recorded by the 1550s.[2] Before 1616 Shakespeare used the compound in The Tempest of someone lavish with something other than money.[5] The adjective, in Middleton's Revengers Tragaedie in 1607 for a person who acts like a spendthrift,[5] extended in 1790, in Burke, to wasteful spending itself.[5] Johnson (1755) defines the noun as "a prodigal; a lavisher", quoting Locke's "spendthrift heirs".[8] Merriam-Webster Unabridged also records a narrower sense, one who wastes an estate, by drinking or gambling for example, so as to leave a family in want or become a public charge.[4]

Timeline

  • 1601 – a person who spends wastefully.[5] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the word to 1584.[4]
  • 1607 – adjective, acting like a spendthrift.[5]
  • before 1616 – someone who uses up something other than money, in Shakespeare's The Tempest.[5]
  • 1790 – adjective, marked by wasteful spending.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A person who spends money extravagantly or improvidently: Her brother was a spendthrift who never saved a penny.[6][4][5]
  2. A person who wastes an inheritance or estate, leaving a family in want.[4][5]
  3. Someone who uses up anything lavishly or wastefully, not only money.[5][4]

Adjective

  1. Given to wasteful spending: a spendthrift nephew.[6][4][5]
  2. Marked by wasteful expenditure or use: spendthrift budgets.[4][5]

Word family

  • spendthrift trust

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  7. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
Cite this entry

“Spendthrift.” Etymologically, 6 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/spendthrift. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·