squander
[skwon-der]
- to spend or use (money, time, etc.) extravagantly or wastefully (often followed by away).
- to scatter.
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- extravagant or wasteful expenditure.
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Origin of squander
First recorded in 1585–95; origin uncertain
Synonyms
See more synonyms for squander on Thesaurus.com1. waste, dissipate, lavish. See spend.
Antonyms
1. save.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for squander
Contemporary Examples
We need to tell our politicians to not squander our heritage.
On the other hand, if we let fear carry the day, we will squander another key moment to move forward together.
Do we scale up effective intervention now and see a payoff in the next few years, or squander that opportunity?
I never knew him to take his time, squander words to be merely decorous.
But he has chosen to squander them in ways that have offended me.
Historical Examples
What then have you done with the sums given you from infancy to squander?
Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9)Samuel Richardson
Then he'll get a kind of maggot in the brain, and squander every sixpence he can lay hands on.
Love and LucyMaurice Henry Hewlett
There's no fun in spendin' money, seems to me, unless you squander it reckless.
Mary Louise in the CountryL. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
But now he was three years weaker, and he had no more money to squander.
In a Little TownRupert Hughes
I also squander it on follies, but on follies of purely home growth.
A Hungarian NabobMaurus Jkai
squander
- to spend wastefully or extravagantly; dissipate
- an obsolete word for scatter
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- rare extravagance or dissipation
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Word Origin
C16: of unknown origin
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for squander
v.
1580s (implied in squandering), "to spend recklessly or prodigiously," of unknown origin; Shakespeare used it 1593 in "Merchant of Venice" with a sense of "to be scattered over a wide area." Squander-bug, a British symbol of reckless extravagance and waste during war-time shortages, represented as a devilish insect, was introduced January 1943 by the National Savings Committee. In U.S., Louis Ludlow coined squanderlust (1935) for the tendency of government bureaucracies to spend much money.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper