as in spendthrift
someone who spends money freely or foolishly
the black sheep of the family, he ended up being a wastrel and a drunkard
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Recent Examples of wastrel
The always-entertaining Bruce Turk steals all his scenes as Ranevskaya’s spoiled and wastrel brother, Leonid Gayev.
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Pam Kragen, San Diego Union-Tribune, 13 Mar. 2023
Selby is a wastrel with a criminal past, yet his mother keeps providing him with soft places to fall.
—Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone, 3 Mar. 2023
Even in 1997, everyone looks pretty good for a bunch of wastrel rockers, whose intersecting trajectories are spun through the early chapters.
—John Anderson, WSJ, 2 Mar. 2023
There's also a stern widower father (Adrian Dunbar), a tender-hearted wastrel brother (Dunkirk's Fionn Whitehead), and the aforementioned hot priest (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), who lights a fire in both Emily's mind and her loins.
—Leah Greenblatt, EW.com, 17 Feb. 2023
See all Example Sentences for wastrel 
Pam Kragen, San Diego Union-Tribune, 13 Mar. 2023
Selby is a wastrel with a criminal past, yet his mother keeps providing him with soft places to fall.
—Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone, 3 Mar. 2023
Even in 1997, everyone looks pretty good for a bunch of wastrel rockers, whose intersecting trajectories are spun through the early chapters.
—John Anderson, WSJ, 2 Mar. 2023
There's also a stern widower father (Adrian Dunbar), a tender-hearted wastrel brother (Dunkirk's Fionn Whitehead), and the aforementioned hot priest (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), who lights a fire in both Emily's mind and her loins.
—Leah Greenblatt, EW.com, 17 Feb. 2023
See all Example Sentences for wastrel
Recent Examples of Synonyms for wastrel
Noun
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That’s half a trillion sucked out of the market and into the bottomless pit of the incontinent spendthrifts in the U.S. government.Clem Chambers, Forbes, 5 Sep. 2024
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Even for a country as awash with cash as Venezuela has been since 2004, Chávez's spendthrift ways have left behind a worrisome level of debt, fiscal deficit, and dependence on imports.Javier Corrales, Foreign Affairs, 4 Jan. 2013
Noun
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He is angered by his father’s instant acceptance of the prodigal’s return.Scott Burns, Dallas News, 18 Dec. 2020
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As a youth, Mr. Graham, now 65, was the prodigal of the Graham family, a college dropout fond of alcohol.Elizabeth Dias, New York Times, 27 May 2018
Noun
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Photo: Brown Harris Stevens Above the bedroom is a double-height library, which turns the sloping ceiling behind a mansard roof into a design feature rather than a space waster.Adriane Quinlan, Curbed, 24 Oct. 2024
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California is moving to outlaw watering some grass that’s purely decorative Today, the lawn is among the biggest wasters of water in our urban environment — by some estimates accounting for more than half of the gallons used by city residents each year.Hayley Smith, Los Angeles Times, 9 Sep. 2024
Thesaurus Entries Near wastrel
Cite this Entry
“Wastrel.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/wastrel. Accessed 1 Dec. 2024.
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