spendthrift

adj

1. Improvident, profligate, or wasteful.

   “Wel, go to wild oats, ſpend thrift prodigal, / Ile croſſe thy name quight from my reckning booke: / For theſe accounts, faith it ſhall ſcath thee ſome what, / I will not ſay what, ſomewhat it ſhall be.”

   “He was now esteemed quite worthy to address the daughter of a foolish, spendthrift baronet, who had not had principle or sense enough to maintain himself in the situation in which Providence had placed him, and who could give his daughter at present but a small part of the share of ten thousand pounds which must be hers hereafter.”

   “Powerful feelings and generous designs are, alas! too like the inheritance of a miser in the hands of some spendthrift heir—lavished away on trifles in our early years, and needed, but not possessed, in our riper age.”

   “Billie Burke's career and life often twined together in this manner – so many of her roles called on her to play parts that were fragments of her real life: the sought-after young stage beauty, the wronged wife, the spendthrift matriarch of bankrupt wealth, the woman too old to be acting so young.”

2. Extravagant or lavish.

   “Rufus's stone lies in the outskirts of the forest, and in a few minutes they emerged upon the broad heath which bounds it, then like a sea of gold; for the furze was in the first glory of its spendthrift wealth.”

   “A high-powered entertainment that acceded to the spiraling capitalization costs of the big musical with a production of spendthrift command, La Cage [aux Folles] came in at summer's end as a guaranteed hit.”

   “This feels like a significant league title in more ways than one. It is now 14 years since Roman Abramovich emerged as an spendthrift presence in west London.”

noun

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; […]”

   “VVell goe too vvild oates, ſpend thrift, prodigall, / Ile croſſe thy name quite from my reckoning booke: / For theſe accounts, faith it ſhall skathe thee ſomevvhat, / I vvill not ſay vvhat ſomevvhat it ſhall be.”

   “Prodigue, & grand beuveur de vin n'a du ſien ne four, ne moulin: Pro. The drunken ſpendthrift vvaſts his beſt poſſeſſions.”

   “[T]emperate people choose neither total abstinence nor perpetual indulgence, but something in between; liberal people are neither spendthrifts nor misers; the properly angry are neither apathetic nor short-tempered; and the strictly just person distributes to everyone what is his or her due, neither more nor less.”

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:...”