reprobate
Americannoun
adjective
verb (used with object)
-
reprobates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
reprobated,
past participle, past
-
reprobating
present participle
adjective
-
morally unprincipled; depraved
-
Christianity destined or condemned to eternal punishment in hell
noun
-
an unprincipled, depraved, or damned person
-
a disreputable or roguish person
the old reprobate
verb
-
to disapprove of; condemn
-
(of God) to destine, consign, or condemn to eternal punishment in hell
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
reprobatesimple
-
reprobatessimple
-
have reprobatedperfect
-
has reprobatedperfect
-
am reprobatingprogressive
-
are reprobatingprogressive
-
is reprobatingprogressive
-
have been reprobatingperfect progressive
-
has been reprobatingperfect progressive
Past
-
reprobatedsimple
-
had reprobatedperfect
-
was reprobatingprogressive
-
were reprobatingprogressive
-
had been reprobatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of reprobate
1400–50; late Middle English reprobaten < Latin reprobātus; past participle of reprobāre to reprove
Explanation
There's no way around it, a reprobate is a bad egg. The black sheep of the family, missing a moral compass — a reprobate's been called everything from a deviant to an evildoer to a scoundrel. Selfish, depraved, disreputable, a reprobate is not known for his inner goodness. In fact, reprobates were once considered "rejected by God," the meaning of the noun in the 1500s. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, a reprobate was a popular literary character, sometimes amusing, as noted in Henry James' Daisy Miller, "What a clever little reprobate she was, and how smartly she played an injured innocence!"
Vocabulary lists containing reprobate
300 Most Difficult "SAT" Words
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Scrooge, Grinch, and Churl: Wonderful Words for Unpleasant People
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Oh, No! Synonyms for "Bad"
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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.
See Examples For:
The film introduces us to Ricky Bobby’s family with a gross-out splat, implying the soon-to-be stock car racer was born in the back of a speeding Chevelle driven by his reprobate father.
From Salon ● Aug. 16, 2026
The other is “Fleabag”: Like Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s acidic reprobate, Ms. Weisz’s character is unconstrained by a fourth wall, sharing with us, reflecting, observing, making wisecracks but not being particularly funny.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 5, 2026
Someone who’s rich enough to buy an NBA franchise has the right to get away with being a reprobate and a bully.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 16, 2022
Mejia somehow kept a quiet presence locally until the beginning of 2021, when activists launched an offensive against the reprobate.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 26, 2021
“He was just an old reprobate who lived poor and died broke,” Grandma said.
From "A Long Way from Chicago" by Richard Peck
If anyone can persuade me and my fellow fossil fuel reprobates to give up our gas-powered lawnmowers, luminous bumpers and fleets of carburetor-powered cars, it’s him.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 27, 2023
It's a bar-setting best for the series, if not TV generally, that also reminds us that we're rooting for absolute reprobates.
From Salon ● Apr. 24, 2022
Cole was also the primary source for Stephen Davis’s 1985 biography “Hammer of the Gods,” a book that solidified the posthumous image of Led Zeppelin as heathen reprobates.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 28, 2018
Danny Boyle revisits his gleeful Scottish reprobates in middle age in “T2 Trainspotting.”
From New York Times ● Jun. 13, 2017
“Those old reprobates, they live in my building, you know...”
From "Jazz" by Toni Morrison
The most ascetic Christians began to question the legality of second marriages on the part of either sex, as even paganism had often reprobated second marriages of women.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 5 "Cat" to "Celt" by Various
Though no one had a deeper respect for vital piety than he, no one more bitterly reprobated that puritanic fanaticism that saw sin and wrong-doing in innocent recreation and relaxation.
From Allan Ramsay Famous Scots Series by William Henry Oliphant Smeaton
Any breach of the sanctities of family life is invariably reprobated.
From The Roman Poets of the Republic by W. Y. Sellar
During some years more tears were shed at comedies than at tragedies; and a pleasantry which moved the audience to anything more than a grave smile was reprobated as low.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 2 "Gloss" to "Gordon, Charles George" by Various
As often as they returned from our hemisphere, they reprobated our ambition, infidelities, and inconstancies; and though they had no form of public worship, were, it seems, strict lovers and reverers of truth.
From British Goblins Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions by Wirt Sikes
On the whole Mr. Spectator has perhaps done wisely in humouring as well as reprobating.
From A Cursory History of Swearing by Julian Sharman
Of course she had expressed herself freely upon the subject of Marian's conduct in these letters, reprobating the girl's treachery and ingratitude, and congratulating Gilbert upon his escape from so ineligible a connection.
From Fenton's Quest by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon
It may be remembered that all the governors of the period agreed in reprobating the factiousness and pettiness of Canadian party politics.
From British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government, 1839-1854 by J. L. (John Lyle) Morison
He was once reprobating the introduction of all bull and bear similes into poetry.
From Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey by Joseph Cottle
It soon went farther, and became vehement in reprobating them as scandalous and dangerous publications.
From The Oxford Movement Twelve Years, 1833-1845 by R. W. (Richard William) Church
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
