PROFLIGACY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does profligacy mean? 

• PROFLIGACY (noun)
  The noun PROFLIGACY has 2 senses:

1. the trait of spending extravagantly

2. dissolute indulgence in sensual pleasure

  Familiarity information: PROFLIGACY used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PROFLIGACY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The trait of spending extravagantly

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

extravagance; prodigality; profligacy

Hypernyms ("profligacy" is a kind of...):

improvidence; shortsightedness (a lack of prudence and care by someone in the management of resources)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Dissolute indulgence in sensual pleasure

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

dissipation; dissolution; licentiousness; looseness; profligacy

Hypernyms ("profligacy" is a kind of...):

intemperance; intemperateness; self-indulgence (excess in action and immoderate indulgence of bodily appetites, especially in passion or indulgence)

 Context examples 

I shall never allow people to talk before me about wastefulness and profligacy, and so forth, in connexion with that life, any more.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The extravagance and general profligacy which he scrupled not to lay at Mr. Wickham's charge, exceedingly shocked her; the more so, as she could bring no proof of its injustice.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

What a strange, unaccountable character!—for with all these symptoms of profligacy at ten years old, she had neither a bad heart nor a bad temper, was seldom stubborn, scarcely ever quarrelsome, and very kind to the little ones, with few interruptions of tyranny; she was moreover noisy and wild, hated confinement and cleanliness, and loved nothing so well in the world as rolling down the green slope at the back of the house.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Standing by the table, with his finger in the page to keep the place, and his right arm flourishing above his head, Traddles, as Mr. Pitt, Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Burke, Lord Castlereagh, Viscount Sidmouth, or Mr. Canning, would work himself into the most violent heats, and deliver the most withering denunciations of the profligacy and corruption of my aunt and Mr. Dick; while I used to sit, at a little distance, with my notebook on my knee, fagging after him with all my might and main.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)