wastrel

American  

[wey-struhl] / ˈweɪ strəl /

noun

1. a wasteful person; spendthrift.

   The wastrel had squandered his inheritance, and then came to her, looking for a handout.

2. Chiefly British.

   1. refuse; waste.

   2. a waif; abandoned child.

   3. an idler or good-for-nothing.

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wastrel British  

/ ˈweɪstrəl /

noun

1. a wasteful person; spendthrift; prodigal

2. an idler or vagabond

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Etymology

Origin of wastrel

First recorded in 1580–90; waste + -rel

Explanation

Your brother who spends money as quickly as he gets it, always wearing new clothes and taking friends out for expensive dinners? You might call him a wastrel, meaning he spends his money foolishly. The word wastrel looks and sounds like waste, which means, as a verb, "to spend or use carelessly" — as a noun, it's the thing that is not used effectively. A wastrel is someone who tends to waste things, careless with anything from money to time, and everything else, too. You can tell wastrels by behavior like running the water while brushing their teeth or spending every dime they have on ice cream and luxurious sweaters.

Example Sentences

The show has sometimes felt reverse-engineered around social media-friendly, memeable moments: Streep’s yelp in the season two premiere; Dern’s prison visiting-room explosion as she realises her wastrel husband Gordon has squandered the family wealth.

From The Guardian • Jul. 19, 2019

To the end, as his mother takes up with an aggressive HIV-infected wastrel, we see the vivid excruciations of being the gifted misfit whose parent needs to be rescued.

From Seattle Times • Jul. 9, 2018

“Existing at the pleasure of the advertisers, to mulct the public, gratifying their stupidity, and render some small advance on investment to the owners, offering putative employment to their etiolated, wastrel sons.”

From Washington Post • Mar. 6, 2018

The wastrel himself, in a statement of apology, explained that he was physically and mentally burned out after a “long week” in Tokyo and “travel throughout the continent.”

From Washington Times • Oct. 20, 2016

Color was splashed through the woods as if it had been thrown about by some madcap wastrel who spilled out, during the weeks of one brief autumn, beauty enough to last for years.

From "Across Five Aprils" by Irene Hunt