How to use profligate in a sentence

10 example sentences · adjective, noun, verb

Profligate means inclined to waste resources or behave extravagantly. Example: “Jay Rodriguez headed over and Dani Osvaldo might have done better with only David De Gea to beat and, as Southampton bordered on the profligate, United were far more ruthless.”

Examples of profligate by meaning

adjectiveInclined to waste resources or behave extravagantly.

Jay Rodriguez headed over and Dani Osvaldo might have done better with only David De Gea to beat and, as Southampton bordered on the profligate, United were far more ruthless.2013 October 19, Ben Smith, BBC Sport
This luxury-loving and profligate shell company is registered at a betting shop on the Caledonian Road, an unlovely thoroughfare in North London on which you'd be more likely to find amphetamines than a top-notch lawyer.2018, Oliver Bullough, chapter 4, in Moneyland, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 65

nounAn abandoned person; one openly and shamelessly vicious; a dissolute person.

Have you come to Nelson seeking your death, profligate?2010 October 19, Obsidian Entertainment, Fallout: New Vegas, Bethesda Softworks, level/area: Nelson

nounAn overly wasteful or extravagant individual.

He proposed to call witnesses to show how the prisoner, a profligate and spendthrift, had been at the end of his financial tether, and had also been carrying on an intrigue with a certain Mrs.1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, London: Pan Books, published 1954, page 152

More sentences with profligate

Borderlessness is a contrived crisis since, for regeneration to take place requires an orificed, profligate, grotesque body.1999, Carolyn Marvin, David W. Ingle, “Fresh blood, public meat”, in Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Totem Rituals and the American Flag…. From the entry orificed
They harbour resentment towards Gen X who failed to fix the mess left by the hated, profligate Baby Boomers.2009, Yaso Nadarajah, Martin Mulligan, Jodi-Anne Smith, Louise le Nay, Christina Hindhaugh, Unexpected Sources of Hope: Climate Change…. From the entry Gen Zed
Consequently, constructing fabricated beaches or replenishing eroded beaches that ocean currents swiftly reerode are profligate colossal wastefulness of public resources and time.2017, JaVee, What Does GOD Do All Day?, →ISBN. From the entry reerode
At last this tiresome old profligate let up on me and the whole camp came en masse, marching around me, dancing, singing.1959, Hugh D. Corwin, Comanche & Kiowa Captives in Oklahoma & Texas, pages 193–194. From the entry puella
Otherwise a profligate statutory body or pachydermic governmental agency may legally defy duties under the law by urging in self-defence a self-created bankruptcy or perverted expenditure budget.1991, Armin Rosencranz, Shyam Divan, Martha L. Noble, Environmental law and policy in India, page 99. From the entry pachydermic
Probably no other country could produce such a degraded type as the squireen or buckeen, the drunken, gambling, profligate descendant of the Cromwellian or Williamite settler.1917, William Francis Thomas Butler, Confiscation in Irish history, page 248. From the entry squireen

Meaning of profligate

adjective Inclined to waste resources or behave extravagantly.
adjective Immoral; abandoned to vice.
adjective Overthrown, ruined.

Full definition of profligate

Questions about profligate in a sentence

How do you use profligate in a sentence?: Profligate is used as an adjective, noun and verb. For example: “Jay Rodriguez headed over and Dani Osvaldo might have done better with only David De Gea to beat and, as Southampton bordered on the profligate, United were far more ruthless.”
What is a short sentence with profligate?: “Have you come to Nelson seeking your death, profligate?”
What does profligate mean?: Profligate means inclined to waste resources or behave extravagantly.

Adapted from Wiktionary: profligate (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use profligate in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/profligate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.