Word.ws English Dictionary

spendthrifts

spendthrifts is the plural of spendthrift.

Meaning of spendthrift

Noun

spendthrift (plural spendthrifts)

  1. Someone who spends money improvidently or wastefully.
    • [T]hat vve vvould doe / VVe ſhould doe vvhen vve vvould: for this vvould changes, / And hath abatements and delayes as many, / As there are tongues, are hands, are accedents, / And then this ſhould is like a ſpend thrifts ſigh, / That hurts by eaſing; […]c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: […] (Second Quarto), London: […] I[ames] R[oberts] for N[icholas] L[ing] […], published 1604...
  2. (figuratively) Anything that distributes its attributes profusely, without restraint.
    • It was one of those bright days in spring, which are very spendthrifts of sunshine, when the darkest alley in London wins a golden glimpse, and the eternal mist around St. Paul's turns to a glittering haze:...1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Publishing”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 9

See all 4 meanings of spendthrift

Questions about spendthrifts

What is spendthrifts the plural of?
Spendthrifts is the plural of spendthrift.

Words near spendthrifts in the dictionary

  1. spendthrift trusts
  2. spendthriftily
  3. spendthriftiness
  4. spendthriftism
  5. spendthriftness
  6. spendthrifts
  7. spendthrifty
  8. spendworthy
  9. spendy
  10. Spenerian
  11. Spenerism

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: spendthrifts (page history and authors); spendthrift (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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