wastrel

English

Etymology

1847, waste +‎ -rel (“(pejorative)”).^[1]

Noun

wastrel (plural wastrels)

1. (dated) One who is profligate, who wastes time or resources extravagantly.
   • 1929, Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own, Penguin Books, paperback edition, page 22

     Mary's mother - if that was her picture - may have been a wastrel in her spare time (she had thirteen children by a minister of the church), but if so her gay and dissipated life had left too few traces of its pleasures on her face.

Synonyms

• See also Wikisaurus:spendthrift

References

1. ^ “wastrel” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary (2001).