reprobate
Americannoun
adjective
verb (used with object)
adjective
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morally unprincipled; depraved
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Christianity destined or condemned to eternal punishment in hell
noun
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an unprincipled, depraved, or damned person
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a disreputable or roguish person
the old reprobate
verb
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to disapprove of; condemn
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(of God) to destine, consign, or condemn to eternal punishment in hell
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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reprobatesimple
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reprobatessimple
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have reprobatedperfect
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has reprobatedperfect
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am reprobatingprogressive
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are reprobatingprogressive
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is reprobatingprogressive
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have been reprobatingperfect progressive
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has been reprobatingperfect progressive
Past
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reprobatedsimple
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had reprobatedperfect
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was reprobatingprogressive
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were reprobatingprogressive
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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 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
Throughout the interview he describes himself, variously, as the "serial pest nuisance of Melbourne" and "an old reprobate, easily forgiven".
From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2019
Was Raymond a normal teenager or a lawless reprobate, as some claimed?
From The Guardian ● Mar. 30, 2019
“He was just an old reprobate who lived poor and died broke,” Grandma said.
From "A Long Way from Chicago" by Richard Peck
Both of those reprobates have attracted a following of immense numbers of people — many who simply don't get it.
From Salon ● Apr. 21, 2022
How that added up to Lord Byron — among the greatest poets and reprobates of the age — is unclear.
From New York Times ● Nov. 30, 2018
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
The lines are long, especially if you're trying to get there before the 11:30 cutoff for breakfast specials, and the business is geared toward families, not reprobates.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 29, 2017
Every member of Phippsburg’s First Congregational—as well as lost reprobates from other denominations—had gathered to greet the new minister and his family.
From "Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy" by Gary D. Schmidt
The master is reprobated who will divide families.
From Discussion on American Slavery by Breckinridge, Rev. Robert J.
I am capable of everything to the end of preventing an act reprobated by the General of my Order.
From The Sword of Honor, volumes 1 & 2 or The Foundation of the French Republic, A Tale of The French Revolution by Sue, Eug?ne
The four following essays were published eighteen months ago in the Cornhill Magazine, and were reprobated in a violent manner, as far as I could hear, by most of the readers they met with.
From Unto This Last and Other Essays on Political Economy by Ruskin, John
The British commander reprobated the death of Captain Huddy, and broke up the board.
From The Student's Life of Washington; Condensed from the Larger Work of Washington Irving For Young Persons and for the Use of Schools by Irving, Washington
When he announced his intention of removing her from the capital, the city mob, who loved the Macedonian house, and laughed at rather than reprobated the foibles of Zoe, took arms to defend their mistress.
From The Byzantine Empire by Oman, Charles William Chadwick
With the exception of the Cardinal of Lorraine, they were well-nigh unanimous in reprobating a venture from which they apprehended only disaster.
From History of the Rise of the Huguenots Vol. 1 by Baird, Henry Martyn
While every one agrees in reprobating wicked actions, few, comparatively, are aware of the natural and habitual evil which lurks in the heart.
From Coelebs In Search of a Wife by More, Hannah
In the spectacle of these Christians reprobating each others' creeds Goethe saw a theme for a moral satire which, fragment as it is, takes its place with the most powerful efforts of his genius.
From The Youth of Goethe by Brown, Peter Hume
Footnote 33: I.e., if the despatch were to abstain from reprobating the French policy.
From The Letters of Queen Victoria : A Selection from Her Majesty's Correspondence between the Years 1837 and 1861 Volume 3, 1854-1861 by Benson, Arthur Christopher
These were followed by more, over the signature of Columbus, and afterward by still more in the name of Barnevelt, all strongly reprobating the course of the crazy-headed foreigner.
From John Quincy Adams American Statesmen Series by Morse, John T. (John Torrey)
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.
