profligate

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Skepticism about the wisdom of these profligate plans are a problem for indexes that are heavily weighted toward big tech like the S&P 500, which ended the week slightly lower.

From Barron's • Feb. 9, 2026

His son David speculated that his dad’s mixed feelings about his fast-food career stemmed from a mentality common among children of the Depression: “Excess bothered them. It almost seemed profligate and unnecessary,” he explained.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 4, 2026

Yet her subject matter—life in an ordinary English village—contrasts with the Prince’s profligate metropolitan existence, and to most of his countrymen he appeared an “inveterate voluptuary,” of whom Austen, like many of her class, disapproved.

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 21, 2025

The seamers ran in down the slope from the Pavilion End, spinner Prabath Jayasuriya plugged away from the Nursery End and England were profligate.

From BBC • Aug. 29, 2024

Although he possessed extraordinary reserves of energy, he’d been profligate with those reserves, and by the time he got to Camp Four they were nearly depleted.

From "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer