spendthrift
Americannoun
-
spendthrifts
plural
adjective
noun
adjective
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of spendthrift
Explanation
A spendthrift person is reckless and wasteful with his money. If you're a spendthrift, you might find yourself in debt. However, it might be fun to have a spendthrift friend who likes to treat you to expensive lunches and lavish gifts. Spendthrift was created by sticking two opposite words together: spend and thrift, which means “savings, wealth.” So a spendthrift spends all of his savings. Spendthrift people are the worst nightmare of retirement planners and Scrooges all over the globe. So unless you want to be called a spendthrift, think twice about your next purchase.
Vocabulary lists containing spendthrift
The Catcher in the Rye
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A Doll's House
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Intermediate, List 9
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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:
A “special-needs trust,” for the record, is similar to a spendthrift trust in that it’s also irrevocable and protected against creditors.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 23, 2026
Yardeni Research President Ed Yardeni said Thursday that the results offer the “latest evidence that consumers have continued their spendthrift ways.”
From Barron's ● Apr. 30, 2026
No one today any longer wishes to hear jokes about nagging mothers-in-law, spendthrift wives or old jalopies, and the men and women who once told them to hardy plaudits are now forgotten.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 14, 2025
Trusts also allow you to put restrictions on how money is spent, which can be important if your heir is a minor child, a spendthrift or someone reliant on public benefits.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 29, 2024
These visits to the zoo holding on to the hand of some conceited spendthrift suitor gave her a lifelong horror of enclosures, walls, cages, and isolation.
From "The House of the Spirits: A Novel" by Isabel Allende
I will uphold his wishes, but if I outlive him and there’s no agreement in place, I would likely give little to nothing to his children because they are irresponsible spendthrifts.
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 16, 2026
Sacrifice sheer consumer quantity in favor of quality spendthrifts?
From Washington Post ● Aug. 30, 2022
How can I persuade my parents not to be spendthrifts on our dime?
From New York Times ● Nov. 11, 2021
The reason massive stars are such spendthrifts is that, as we saw above, the rate of fusion depends very strongly on the star’s core temperature.
From Textbooks ● Oct. 13, 2016
Like many other spendthrifts, the College Chap was no sooner thrown upon his own resources than he turned stingy and unfeeling.
From Black Forest Village Stories by Berthold Auerbach
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.
