Definition of "profligate"

His undignified and profligate exile—needy suitor to-day to the only heiress of the royal French blood, and to-morrow to one of the nieces of the Italian adventurer, Mazarin. Utterly neglectful of what he owes to the kingdom which he hopes to regain, Charles has learned but adversity's worst lesson—expediency.

1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXIII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), page 258

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, page 65

Made prostitute and profligate the muse.

1685, John Dryden, To The Pious Memory of the Accomplish'd Young Lady Mrs. Anne Killigrew

Time ſenſibly all things impairs; / Our fathers have been worſe than theirs; / And we than ours; next age will ſee / A race more profligate than we / (With all the pains we take) have ſkill enough to be.

a. 1686, Earl of Roscommon , published 1779, page 257

The foe is profligate, and run.

1662, [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge: University Press, 1905

Have you come to Nelson seeking your death, profligate?

2010 October 19, Obsidian Entertainment, Fallout: New Vegas, Bethesda Softworks, level/area: Nelson

Such a stipulation would remove one powerful temptation to profligate pennyless seducers, of whom there are too many prowling in the higher circles ;

1840, Alexander Walker, Woman Physiologically Considered as to Mind, Morals, Marriage, Matrimonial Slavery, Infidelity and Divorce, page 157