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Profligate   /prˈɔflɪgˌeɪt/   Listen
Profligate

adjective
1.
Recklessly wasteful.  Synonyms: extravagant, prodigal, spendthrift.
2.
Unrestrained by convention or morality.  Synonyms: debauched, degenerate, degraded, dissipated, dissolute, fast, libertine, riotous.  "Deplorably dissipated and degraded" , "Riotous living" , "Fast women"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Profligate" Quotes from Famous Books



... the ruling race of the tract of country called Rohilkhand, and are men of a taller stature, a fairer complexion and a more arrogant air than the general inhabitants of the district. Bishop Heber described them as follows:—"The country is burdened with a crowd of lazy, profligate, self-called sawars (cavaliers), who, though many of them are not worth a rupee, conceive it derogatory to their gentility and Pathan blood to apply themselves to any honest industry, and obtain for the most part a ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... the invaluable blessings which are certainly in their power. I will not conceive it possible that men who have eternal fame within their grasp will place the rich inheritance on the cast of a die, and, losing the venture, be damned among the worst and most profligate adventurers ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... visited the city in a single month. But the vast sums they brought to Rome, and the still greater sums which were obtained by the sale of indulgences, and by various taxations, were all squandered in ornamenting the city, and in supporting a luxurious court, profligate cardinals, and superfluous ministers of a corrupted religion. Then was erected the splendid church of St. Peter, more after the style of Grecian temples, than after the model of the Gothic cathedrals of York and Cologne. Glorious was that monument of reviving art; wonderful was its lofty ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... a profligate Kite Who would haunt the saloons every night; And often he ust To reel back to his roost Too full to set ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley

... extremes than one who has kept his body as it should be kept. This is, indeed, the horrible plan of those who destroy our youths, and that father of robbers must have known man well, who said, "We must destroy both body and soul." Catiline was a profligate before he became a conspirator, and Doria greatly erred when he thought he had no cause to fear a voluptuary like Fiesco. On the whole, it is very often remarked that an evil spirit dwells in a ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... unhappy he had made them by his misconduct. But these feelings soon wore away. Familiarity with sea life gave him courage, and he became inured to its hardships. Constant intercourse with the most profligate and abandoned, gave strength and inveteracy to his sinful habits; and before the voyage had terminated, he was reckless of danger, and as hardened and unfeeling as the most depraved on board the ship. This boy commenced with disobedience in little things, and grew worse and worse, till he forsook ...
— The Child at Home - The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated • John S.C. Abbott

... associations, or other plausible key to effects, which, taken separately, and out of their natural connection with their explanatory causes, are apt rather to startle and revolt the feelings of sober thinkers. Except, perhaps, in some chapters of Italian history, as, for example, among the most profligate of the Papal houses, and amongst some of the Florentine princes, we find hardly any parallel to the atrocities of Caligula and Nero; nor indeed was Tiberius much (if at all) behind them, though otherwise so wary and cautious in his conduct. The same tenor of licentiousness beyond ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... surnamed 'le roue' (the profligate), and Mademoiselle du Barry advised, or rather prompted, Madame du Barry in furtherance of the plans of the party of the Marechal de Richelieu and the Duc d'Aiguillon. Sometimes they even set her to act in such a way as to have a useful influence ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... her mind—as we both feel so strongly convinced of the immense superiority of Pedro over any other young Prince even dans les relations journalistes, besides which the position is so infinitely preferable. The Austrian society is medisante and profligate and worthless—and the Italian possessions very shaky. Pedro is full of resource—fond of music, fond of drawing, of languages, of natural history, and literature, in all of which Charlotte would suit him, and would be a real benefit to the country. If Charlotte asked me, I should not hesitate ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria

... accustomed to call tyrants, than by those who are considered models of virtue. The author of the "Philosophumena" (book ix., ch. 11) says that Commodus granted to Pope Victor the liberation of the Christians who had been condemned to the mines of Sardinia by Marcus Aurelius. Thus that profligate emperor was really more merciful to the Church than the philosophic author of the "Meditations," who, in the year 174, had witnessed the miracle of the Thundering Legion. The reason is evident. The wise rulers foresaw the destructive effect of the new doctrines on pagan society, ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani

... heart-rending thing was the humble protests of the servants. "Your ladyship! Oh, your ladyship!"—as they came up one by one, or two by two, obeying orders of the Earl, to be incontinently boxed on the ears by a member of a profligate aristocracy. Probably any one of them was strong enough to throw the beldame out at a window. But such was not the manner of the time. One would think they would retreat upon the Earl and ask to be dismissed from his service. But this also was not the manner of the time. No; they marched ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane

... the young man to better habits. It seems as if the hand of an avenging Providence had conducted this unfortunate mother to take a step so fatal to her son. She told the viceroy that she had in vain attempted to check him, that his days and nights were spent with profligate companions in gambling-houses and in cock-pits, and that she feared some mischief would come some day from his fighting and swearing and drinking; that but a few days since he had come home late, and that she had observed that his stockings were dabbled in blood; that she ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... question makes it quite clear, if any evidence of that were necessary, that Anne had her brother in mind in writing the book. 'I could not be understood to suppose,' she says, 'that the proceedings of the unhappy scapegrace, with his few profligate companions I have here introduced, are a specimen of the common practices of society: the case is an extreme one, as I trusted none would fail to perceive; but I knew that such characters do exist, and if I have warned one rash youth from following in their steps, or prevented ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... to behave as a son, he should cease to be a father, in every thing but in his authority:—'be assured,' said be, 'I shall take sure measures to prevent you from bringing either ruin or disgrace upon a family of which you are the first profligate:—this chamber must be your prison, till I have considered in what fashion I shall ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... spirit of lawlessness pervades the community which, if not repressed, threatens the dissolution of our present forms of society. Even in the old States, mobs are taking the government into their hands, and a profligate newspaper finds little difficulty in stirring up multitudes to violence. * * Add to all this the invasions of the rights of speech and of the press by lawless force, the extent and toleration of which oblige us to believe that a considerable portion of our citizens have no comprehension of the ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... and forlorn, living in wretched lodgings, with some of the pictures and finery, the wreck of her fortunes, before her eyes, without society, without a single friend, admired—and despised: she lives literally in spite, not in pity. Her cruelty in drawing a profligate character of the Queen after her execution, in the Chevaliers du Cygne, her taking her pupils at the beginning of the Revolution to the revolutionary clubs, her connection with the late Duke of Orleans and her hypocrisy about ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... chiefly formed of convicts: and perhaps a tax upon intoxicating liquors is no bad mode of procuring the means of erecting them, for thus the sober and industrious are not heavily taxed to provide for the support and punishment of the profligate and wicked. Nevertheless, if Christ's religion be true, there is a surer and better way of checking crime, than by trusting to gaols and police alone; but, unhappily, this more excellent way of reforming the morals of mankind, ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... desperate than the present, wherein the recovery hath been perfect. Yet much mischief is already done, or rather the basis of mischief is already and irremoveably laid. In future times, designing, ambitious and profligate men may start the idea that what has been may be, and in the desperate effort of factious opposition, even venture to arraign the temper and health of mind, though it shows its perfect state, and the wise measures of Government should put such ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham

... development and secondarily for man's, precisely as man believes himself created first for his own enjoyment and second for that of woman—she will constitute herself sole umpire in the sacred domain of motherhood. Then, instead of feeling it her Christian duty to live with a drunken, profligate husband, handing down to her children his depraved appetites and passions, she will know that God's curse will be upon her and her children if she flee not from him as ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... this true of sublime and serious art only. It is true of cynical, profligate, and concupiscent art as well. It is true of Congreve as it is true of Sophocles; it is true of Mademoiselle de Maupin as it is true of Measure for Measure. This art differs from the former in that the end presented in it as the object of struggle is not only not the morally right, ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock

... next two items in his programme. He had planned a boxing competition, in which the main feature was to be a regular set-to between Dunc Robertson and himself, to decide finally which was the better man, for they had fought six times and the issue was still doubtful; and Speug, who had a profligate genius outside the class-rooms, had also imagined a pony race with hurdles; and as about twenty fellows, farmers' sons and others, had ponies, of which they were always bragging, and Speug had the pick of his father's ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren

... see and understand, Nature has but one desire, and that is the preservation and perpetuation of life. This is its purpose or, rather, its strongest urge not only with men but with all animal life. Sometimes to create one fish a million eggs are spawned. Nature is profligate both in spawning life and compassing its destruction. In the human species the capacity for life is immeasurably beyond its fruition. A large portion of those who are born die an early death. And that human life shall not be extinct, Nature plants the life-giving desire deep ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow

... led by Conrad, Emperor of Germany, and Louis VII. of France. The profligate conduct of Queen Eleanor, who accompanied her royal consort, led to serious political conditions. Louis appealed to the pope, who consented to the divorce he desired. This proved simply an exchange of thrones for the fascinating Eleanor. Henry II. of England, already the possessor ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele

... most profligate and abandoned life, whose praying mother followed him like a shadow into and out of his drinking saloons and gambling houses, at last absented himself from home, whenever he was in port. Her burden, finally, seemed too ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various

... was an utter profligate, cruel, faithless, avaricious, immoral, and pleasure-loving. Gladiators played an important part at his court, and he often took part in their contests. Horse-racing, cock-fights, and such like amusements occupied him much more than state affairs, and the whole court ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... the ears. "Does it serve any purpose to relate? He was very charming, very accomplished; how was my sister, at eighteen, to know that he was also very callous, very profligate, very cruel? These things happen ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... of Israel, had two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, and they were priests in Shiloh. They were utterly bad, profligate men, utterly regardless of the honour of God, and they disgraced their sacred calling by their shameless lives. They snatched from the sacrifices the best portion of the meat, and kept it for themselves, ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould

... who passed one day were two fine young men, Wedig von Schwetzkow, and Johann Appelmann, son of the burgomaster at Stargard. They were both handsome; but Johann was a dissolute, wild profligate, and Wedig was not troubled with too much sense. Still he had not fallen into the evil courses which made the other so notorious. "Who is that handsome youth?" asked Sidonia as Johann passed; and when they told her, "Ah, a gentleman!" she exclaimed, ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold

... of the Exchequer in 1761, through the influence of the Earl of Bute. He was the owner of Medmenham Abbey, on the Thames, and as such, the President of the profligate Club whose doings were made notorious by the proceedings against Wilkes, and who, in compliment to him, called ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole

... people not so far off, we should have too much reason to fear, that many, in more civilized countries, have no very strong and clear impressions of a Deity upon their minds, and that the complaints of atheism made from the pulpit are not without reason. And though only some profligate wretches own it too barefacedly now; yet perhaps we should hear more than we do of it from others, did not the fear of the magistrate's sword, or their neighbour's censure, tie up people's tongues; which, were the apprehensions of punishment or shame taken away, would as openly proclaim ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke

... engaged with great ardour in a new poem, called by him, the Progress of a Divine; in which he conducts a profligate priest, by all the gradations of wickedness, from a poor curacy in the country to the highest preferments of the church; and describes, with that humour which was natural to him, and that knowledge which was extended to all the diversities of human life, his behaviour in every station; and insinuates, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... favourite among the women in my time, Tom," said the profligate old debauchee; "hundreds of fine women have sat in my lap for hours together. What do you think of that, you dog, eh!" The old gentleman was proceeding to recount some other exploits of his youth, when he was ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... came and went on the cheek of the profligate Cornbury. Ashamed of his weakness, he affected to laugh at what he had heard, and ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... the daughter of Sir Charles Sedley, one of the most brilliant and profligate wits of the Restoration. The licentiousness of his writings is not redeemed by much grace or vivacity; but the charms of his conversation were acknowledged even by sober men who had no esteem for his character. To sit near him at the theatre, and to hear his criticisms on a new play, was regarded ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... all her sex the most ill-fitted by nature for such an existence. Her second resort to the stage in 1847, her fortunes at Manchester and in London, her return to America, her public readings of Shakspeare here, her divorce, and the very curious and unexplained circumstance of her translation of a profligate French play, and disposal of it as a piece of her own original composition, are all matters of too late occurrence ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... no better test of the popular opinion of a man than the character assigned to him on the stage; and till the close of the sixteenth century Sir John Oldcastle remained the profligate buffoon of English comedy. Whether in life he bore the character so assigned to him, I am unable to say. The popularity of Henry V., and the splendour of his French wars served no doubt to colour all who had opposed him with a blacker shade than they deserved: but it is almost certain that Shakspeare, ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... petition had been that she might come to see, not to be seen,—as if, she cried out tearfully, the two wishes must not necessarily exist together, like the masculine and the feminine in this world! Prince Hal, acting the most profligate period of his career, espied her behind the Mousquetaire's moustache, and did not fail to make much of his discovery. In a perilous moment for the reputation of the Ball, my father handed him over to Gascoigne, and conducted ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... sensibility, and a temper peculiarly formed for the enjoyments of social life. "But this gentleman, madam, who is her gallant this evening,—is his character unexceptionable? Will a lady of delicacy associate with an immoral, not to say profligate, man?" "The rank and fortune of Major Sanford," said Mrs. Richman, "procure him respect; his specious manners render him acceptable in public company; but I must own that he is not the person with whom I wish my cousin to be connected even for a moment. She never ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster

... in command. It was then learned that a great part of the time the Emperor was either drunk or doped, that the Empress was hysterical and on the verge of a mental breakdown, and that they were assisted by senile Sturmer, mentally unbalanced Protopopov, and profligate Rasputin, none of whom could read a compass nor lay out a course and steered the ship as they willed. All the passengers, first, second, and third class, grand dukes, intelligentsia, and laborers saw the danger and shouted warning but the officers neither saw nor heard. In order ...
— The Russian Revolution; The Jugo-Slav Movement • Alexander Petrunkevitch, Samuel Northrup Harper,

... and other officers chosen in the room of those who had fallen with Davis, it was resolved not to leave this place without revenging his death. Accordingly, thirty men, under the command of one Kennedy, a bold and profligate fellow, landed, and under cover of the fire of the ship, ascended the hill upon which the fort stood. They were no sooner discovered by the Portuguese, than they abandoned the fort, and took shelter in the town. The pirates then entered without ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... company; and political as well as personal penury became the portion of many as the result of these improvident and profligate days. The episode of the Duchess's career which is most known, is her purchase, by a kiss, of a vote for Fox when she was championing his cause in an election, and canvassing for votes in company with her sister, Lady ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing

... received as CONCLUSIVE, in the face of any amount of oral and documentary testimony to the contrary. "Can a man take fire into his bosom and not be burned?" Can a man aid in executing such a law without defiling his own conscience? Yet does this profligate statute, with impious arrogance, command "ALL GOOD CITIZENS" to assist in enforcing it, when required so to do by an ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various

... our age to underrate parental dignity. In the easy-going world, preference is given to profligate celibacy over honorable wedlock; marriage itself is degraded to the level of a purely natural contract, its bond has lost its character of indissolubility and its obligations are shirked to meet the demands of fashion and convenience. ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... large cities are concerned, one can hardly sever the mental association which links together Clubs and domestic happiness—or unhappiness. I bring against these institutions no wholesale denunciation. I neither say nor believe that all who belong to them are men of profligate character. I cannot doubt that they comprise individuals not only of high social standing, but of great personal worth. But in dealing with the institutions themselves, I must be permitted to express the conviction that they are unfavourable to the culture of the domestic ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur

... be counted in the metropolis to secure the State. Mr. Tilden denied all knowledge of the letter. Without even consulting him, his authority had been appropriated by the "Tweed Ring," just then rising to its colossal power. During the entire period of its profligate ascendency, Mr. Tilden continued as chairman of the State Committee, but he did not share its corrupt counsels or sanction its audacious schemes. The worst reproach which lies against him is that of remaining too long a passive witness. There was no bond of affiliation ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... or send away Lucy; she could not well do without her; and besides, there were reasons which made it desirable that the girl should remain friendly. She did not call out to her hopeful son, either,—although her fingers did itch to tweak his profligate ears. She knew that a dispute with him would only end in his going off in a huff, and she thought she could employ him better. So she coughed first and then stepped out into the yard. Hugh presently came sauntering down the walk, and Lucy sang among the clothes-lines ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... integrity and the mildest character in his private connexions, though as a politician he was distinguished for his disregard of truth, his violence, and his use of any means to carry the ends which his party espoused. And on the other hand we hear men whose private vices are notorious—profane, profligate, unprincipled—commended for the consistency and purity of their political course. Is not this wrong, is it not deplorable? Shall we for a moment countenance this distinction between public and private character, as if ...
— The Religion of Politics • Ezra S. Gannett

... cases of unlikeness. I wish Panaetius could be here: he lived with Africanus. I would inquire of him which of his family the nephew of Africanus's brother was like? Possibly he may in person have resembled his father; but in his manners he was so like every profligate, abandoned man, that it was impossible to be more so. Whom did the grandson of P. Crassus, that wise and eloquent and most distinguished man, resemble? Or the relations and sons of many other excellent men, whose names there is no occasion to mention? But what are we doing? Have ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... repentance over her strangled body is also the first flash of insanity. He survives to present the spectacle of a crazed lunatic, and to be run through the body by his paid assassin. In the Cardinal of Aragon, Webster paints a profligate Churchman, no less voluptuous, blood-guilty, and the rest of it, than his brother the Duke of Calabria. It seems to have been the poet's purpose in each of his Italian tragedies to unmask Rome ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... based upon mere forensic skill or professional duty. His it was to help to apply the first impulse to the movement which eventually broke down the strong bulwarks of territorial oligarchy. His it was to wear the political martyr's crown; his to beard a profligate Court, and a despotic, tyrannical, and corrupt Government; his to win, or to help to win, far nobler victories than were ever gained by Marlborough or Wellington: victories of which we reap the benefits now, in liberty of thought and speech, in an unfettered Press, ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards

... inward peace; it secures that tranquillity, without which no science can be successfully pursued. Sin disturbs the reason. Putting evil for good leads one to substitute error in general for truth. Nero was said to be as deficient in taste, as he was cruel and wicked. The imagination of a profligate cannot be other than depraved. And then, as regards the great objects of life, do good, and you perceive these with more and more clearness. Thus is "light" always "sown to the righteous." Live in God, and you ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... felt the same prejudices, and reasoned from the same errors; but experience, sad and painful experience, has taught me better. What the conduct of former armies was, I know not, but what the conduct of the present is, I well know. It is low, cruel, indolent and profligate; and had the people of America no other cause for separation than what the army has occasioned, that ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... that? You refuse my daughter! You, a common, stupid Jew from Szybow, do not wish to marry a beautiful, educated girl like my Mera! Fie upon you—an idiot, a profligate!" ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko

... grumbler was ever heard of. The vices that rot our cities here had no footing. Amusements abounded, but they were all innocent. No merry-makings conduced to intoxication, to riot, to disease. Love existed, and was ardent in pursuit, but its object, once secured, was faithful. The adulterer, the profligate, the harlot, were phenomena so unknown in this commonwealth, that even to find the words by which they were designated one would have had to search throughout an obsolete literature composed thousands of years before. They who have been students ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... expense of his enemy by the display of superior cunning, by rendering him ridiculous, by exposing him to mental as well as physical anguish, by wounding him through his affections or his sense of honor, was the end which he pursued."[2259] "However profligate the people might have been, they were not contented with grossness unless seasoned with wit. The same excitement of the fancy rendered the exercise of ingenuity, or the avoidance of peril, an enhancement ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... prison, where, with "much firmness of mind and nobility of soul," he endured a tedious captivity for many years, until Charles II. was recalled, when he ordered his old and faithful friend Seaforth to be released, after which he became a great favourite at his licentious and profligate Court. ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... he forged his grandfather's name; that he is a profligate and a spendthrift, and that he has taken or borrowed from his grandfather whatever money he could get, and that—in short, he is a ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant

... wild men or wilder beasts, because, if you do that, you give your scheme away and Cynthia will have the satisfaction of knowing that she has driven you to desperate courses. Yet that is what Mr. Bensley Stuart Gore did (he was the "Profligate" of the title, though he never gave any noticeable sign ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various

... actors. The four principal characters, denominated masks, were Pantaloon, a merchant of Venice, a doctor of laws from Bologna, and two servants, known to us as Harlequin and Columbine. When we add to these a couple of sons, one virtuous and the other profligate; a couple of daughters, and a pert, intriguing chambermaid, we have nearly the whole dramatis personae of these plays. The extempore dialogue by which the plot was developed was replete with drollery and wit, and there was no end to the ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... observed that no mention is made of the condition of the woman, as being in wedlock or not. When it was objected at the Savoy Conference that some profession of humiliation ought to be required of an unmarried or profligate woman before she was admitted to the privilege of thanksgiving, the Bishops replied, "that such a woman should do her penance ...
— Ritual Conformity - Interpretations of the Rubrics of the Prayer-Book • Unknown

... his especial gratification. Mrs. Damer again! how proud he was of her genius—her beauty, her cousinly love for himself; the wise way in which she bound up the wounds of her breaking heart when her profligate husband shot himself, by taking to occupation—perhaps, too, by liking cousin Horace indifferently well. He put her models forward in every place. Here was her Osprey Eagle in terra-cotta, a masterly production; there a couvre-fire, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... infatuated as to deny that the ministry is mad, or worse than mad—our wealth exhausted, our people miserable, our credit blasted, and our state on the brink of perdition? This prospect, indeed, will make the fainter impression, if we recollect that we ourselves are a pack of such profligate, corrupted, pusillanimous rascals, as deserve ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... or divisions of any sort. They were kind to each other, and required no magistrates nor laws to keep them in order. Alas! how soon was this happy state of existence to be destroyed by the cruel, avaricious, and profligate Spaniards. Unlike their pious, high-minded, and sagacious chief, they resembled the bloodhounds they were wont to let loose in chase of ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith

... with slaves like themselves, were every day threatening with more and more vehemence all the houses and temples of the city; so severe was the rigour of Dolabella, not only towards the audacious and wicked slaves, but also towards the profligate and unprincipled freemen, and so prompt was his overthrow of that accursed pillar, that it seems marvellous to me that the subsequent time has been so ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero

... discourses on his alleged conversion to religion, in a strain which settles the question, so much discussed for the past two or three years, whether such a conversion has actually taken place or not. He declares that he has "returned to God, like the profligate son, after having long kept swine among the Hegelians. Was it suffering that drove me back? Perhaps a less miserable reason. The celestial home-sickness came over me, and urged me forth through woods and ravines, over the dizziest mountain paths of dialectics. On my way I found the God of the Pantheists, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various

... clearly the joy of curves as opposed to the severity of straight lines than that voluptuous period of Louis XV known as Rococo. It was a profligate era, an era of pleasure, and the appended illustration of part of a frieze is in no way exaggerated, but a true example of a ...
— Color Value • C. R. Clifford

... marabout or santon of the desert—a sort of enthusiasts, who sometimes ventured into the camp of the Crusaders, though treated always with contumely, and often with violence. Indeed, the luxury and profligate indulgence of the Christian leaders had occasioned a motley concourse in their tents of musicians, courtesans, Jewish merchants, Copts, Turks, and all the varied refuse of the Eastern nations; so that the caftan and turban, though to drive both from the Holy Land was the professed ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... their lots, often situated many miles in the backwoods, and in distant and unsettled townships, presenting great obstacles to the poor emigrant, which it requires more energy and courage to encounter than is possessed by a vast number of them. Others, of idle and profligate habits, spend the money they received, and sell the land, for which they gave away their pensions, after which they remain miserable ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... Ford's thin lips drew tightly together for the moment. "Joe Garland is dissolute and idle. He has always been a wastrel, a profligate." ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London

... at the effeminate Fiesco; all Genoa cursed the profligate FIESCO. Genoese! my amours have blinded the cunning despot. My wild excesses served to guard my plans from the danger of an imprudent confidence. Concealed beneath the cloak of luxury the infant plot grew up. Enough—I'm known sufficiently to Genoa in being ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... and it has helped to exasperate the feeling against you. It is roundly stated in so many words that you have been prying into Miss Gwilt's family affairs, with the most dishonorable motives; that you have tried, for a profligate purpose of your own, to damage her reputation, and to deprive her of the protection of Major Milroy's roof; and that, after having been asked to substantiate by proof the suspicions that you have cast on the reputation of a defenseless woman, you have maintained a silence which condemns you in ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... would buy a few cakes and a bottle of vin cachete with the enclosed trifle, to celebrate his prosperity, he would deem it the privilege of a devoted son. But Pujol senior, though wondering where the devil he had fished all that money from, did not waste it in profligate revelry. He took the eighty pounds to the bank and exchanged the perishable paper for one hundred solid golden louis which he carried home in a bag curiously bulging beneath his woollen jersey and secreted it with the savings of his ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke

... God in prayer, beseeching him, for Jesus Christ's sake, to have mercy upon their souls. Many prayed in that hour of trial that never prayed before. It was an hour that closed the scorner's lip, and made the most profligate feel he was in the presence of ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna

... opinions about ours. None of the parents were lunatics, and the rest is mere likes and dislikes. Suppose Dr. Saleeby had gone up to Byron and said, "My lord, I perceive you have a club-foot and inordinate passions: such are the hereditary results of a profligate soldier marrying a hot-tempered woman." The poet might logically reply (with characteristic lucidity and impropriety), "Sir, I perceive you have a confused mind and an unphilosophic theory about other people's love affairs. Such are the hereditary delusions bred by a Syrian doctor marrying a Quaker ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton

... luxurious lives and frequently married Russian gentry or even the nobility. It was only the successes, however, who achieved such distinction, and there were "a great number of low, vulgar, and profligate females who sing in taverns, or at the various gardens in the neighbourhood, and whose husbands and male connections subsist by horse-jobbing and such kinds of low ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... where he fell, pierced by twenty-two wounds, at the base of Pompey's statue, the greatest man in Roman history—great as an orator, a writer, a general, and a statesman; a man without vanity, devoted to business, unseduced by pleasure, unscrupulous of means to effect an end; profligate, but not more so than his times; ambitious of power, but to rule, when power was once secured, for the benefit of his country, like many other despots immortal on a bloody catalogue. After his passage of the Rubicon his career can ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... sacrificed hitherto by incapable leaders. One lesson they all learn,—to hate slavery, teterrima causa. But the issue does not yet appear. We must get ourselves morally right. Nobody can help us. 'T is of no account what England or France may do. Unless backed by our profligate parties, their action would be nugatory, and, if so backed, the worst. But even the war is better than the degrading and descending politics that preceded it for decades of years, and our legislation has made great strides, ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... that stuck-up young swell takes of me, I might be a block of wood! I'll make him listen to me. (Aloud.) Ahem! My Lord, I've just been telling my niece here the latest scandal in high-life. I daresay your Lordship has heard of that titled but brainless young profligate, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 18, 1893 • Various

... an old and respected citizen, was assassinated here about midnight by a profligate Italian nobleman or a barber on account of a quarrel growing out of the recent election. The assassin will ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... fleet, and made him, next to his brother, the most powerful and important personage in the realm. He had, besides, as has already been stated, the custody and care of Elizabeth, who lived in his house; though, as he was a profligate and unprincipled man, this position for the princess, now fast growing up to womanhood, was considered by many persons as of doubtful propriety. Still, she was at present only fourteen years old. There was another young lady likewise in his family, a niece of King ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... denied, save occasionally, these profligate liberties. Occasionally, however, they range into the quarter assigned to the women. The males, accustomed in London to indiscriminate license, discover the greatest regret at the restraint of their passions ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... our century, or of any century, has said: 'What is a hypocrite? We are apt to understand by a hypocrite one who makes a profession of religion for secret ends without practising what he professes; who is malevolent, covetous, or profligate, while he assumes an outward sanctity in his words and conduct, and who does so deliberately, deceiving others, and not at all self-deceived. But this is not what our Saviour seems to have meant by a hypocrite; nor were the Pharisees such. The Pharisees ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte

... professors there are who would be least easily believed by those who live in the same house with them, if they said that Jesus had cast their devils out of them. It is a great mistake to take recent converts, especially if they have been very profligate beforehand, and to hawk them about the country as trophies of God's converting power. Let them stop at home, and bethink themselves, and get sober and confirmed, and let their changed lives prove the reality of Christ's healing power. They can speak ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... persons who could not be called exactly either weak or credulous. But she did more than this. A pupil of Exili, like La Croix, she, like him, concocted the same subtle poison that killed and left no trace behind it; and so she helped in this way profligate sons to get early possession of their inheritance, and depraved wives to another and younger husband. Desgrais wormed his way into her secret; she confessed all; the Chambre Ardente condemned her ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... priest, who, sooner than break the seal of confession, suffered death, is John of Nepomuc, Canon of Prague. By order of the Emperor Wenceslas, he was thrown off a bridge into the Muldaw, because he would not tell that profligate prince the confession of his religious empress. This holy man is honoured as St. John Nepomucen on the 16th of May, in the kalendar ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 50. Saturday, October 12, 1850 • Various

... characterised most of the monarchs of the time, though one illegitimate son was born to him, three years after Mary, by Mistress Elizabeth Blount—"mistress" being the courtesy title of unmarried ladies. The Court however was undoubtedly licentious, and many of his favourite companions were notoriously profligate. In 1522 Anne Boleyn, then an attractive girl of sixteen, the daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, came to Court. At what time Henry became seriously enamoured of her is uncertain; but from 1522 her father became the recipient of numerous favours; and ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... of time, yet must I frankly admit that few countrymen of mine have such facility. Many of them there are who could be religious, and more who could be bad, with spontaneous ease, but few there be who know how to be both at once. But Geordie did. He was a profligate, but a pious profligate; a terror he was, but he was a holy terror. Mind you well, I do not mean to impugn Geordie's sincerity in the last appeal; not for one moment, for I believe implicitly that Geordie, ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles

... them. But, putting aside such gross cases, let the reader reflect for a moment how extensive a ground is covered by the celebrated "A.M.D.G." formula ("Ad majorem Dei gloriam"). The conscience of an elector may be supposed to speak to him thus: "It is true that I know A.B. to be a profligate and thoroughly worldly man, but his influence with such or such a statesman or monarch will probably be the means of saving the Church from a schism in this, that or the other country. And that assuredly is A.M.D.G. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various

... among the most distinguished citizens of Sparta. Cleomenes terminated his career of raving cruelty by cutting himself to pieces. Pausanias seems to have been absolutely insane; he formed a hopeless and profligate scheme; he betrayed it by the ostentation of his behaviour, and the imprudence of his measures; and he alienated, by his insolence, all who might have served or protected him. Xenophon, a warm admirer of Lacedaemon, furnishes us with the strongest evidence to this effect. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... stimulated discussions; it was she, oftenest, who kept in view the fact that a good many women in the past had been entrusted with power and had not always used it amiably, who brought up the wicked queens, the profligate mistresses of kings. These ladies were easily disposed of between the two, and the public crimes of Bloody Mary, the private misdemeanours of Faustina, wife of the pure Marcus Aurelius, were very satisfactorily classified. If the influence of ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James

... commit, to a carrier in the neighbourhood, the care of his illegitimate children, shortly after they were born. His emissary regularly carried them away, but they were never again heard of. The unjust and cruel gains of the profligate laird were dissipated by his extravagance, and the ruins of his house seem to bear witness to the truth of the rhythmical prophecies denounced against it, and still current among the peasantry. He himself died an untimely death; but the agent ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott

... tranquillity while that pestilent body is in existence; smite it "hip and thigh," and you at once cut off the fruitful sources of discontent and crime. Stop the rent, and at one blow you annihilate the profligate press, which turns the minds of the people from their legitimate avocations, which panders to their prejudices, and excites them to outrage. Of what use will it be to confine the peasant to his house by night, if you allow him to be beset during the day by the noxious publications ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... appeared in the next issue of the county paper a full description of the contest, from which it appeared that his favourite son had been beaten in a public trial of skill by Jim Jarrocks, well-known all over the county as the most reckless poacher and unblushing profligate anywhere about, and had thus given encouragement to a man who was constantly before the magistrates for all sorts of minor breaches of the law. However, he felt that he must make the best of it, and he therefore spoke of it among his friends as a bit of foolish practical ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson

... borrowed was met by Mr. Bernal Osborne. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had said, that he did not wish to see the State become a great money lender; in reply to which Mr. Osborne expressed the opinion, that it would be much better for the State to become a great money lender than to continue a profligate spendthrift—dissipating the funds of the country on the highways of Ireland. "Had not," he asked, "the policy of the State always been to become a great money lender? Since the Union L18,000,000 of money had been lent to England and Scotland, of which L6,000,000 ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... sea, in the clouds, adrift, or by whatever word utter ignorance and incapacity are to be described. In society and in the work of life, he finds himself beaten by the youth whom at college he despised as frivolous or abhorred as profligate." ...
— The Philosophy of Teaching - The Teacher, The Pupil, The School • Nathaniel Sands

... to undo what neglect has accomplished. It is because of the failure of this simple function that my lady seeks the masseur, the facial artist, the society doctor, the beauty expert, and the thousand and one agencies, which an extravagant and profligate age has made necessary to foster ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague

... to pass what they hoped the other would be persuaded to reject, went through the legislature, contrary to the real wish of all parts of it, and of all the parties that composed it. In this manner these insolent and profligate factions, as if they were playing with balls and counters, made a sport of the fortunes and the liberties of their fellow-creatures. Other acts of persecution have been acts of malice. This was a subversion of justice from wantonness and petulance. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... capital or from property that is theirs by reason of years of frugality, industry, and thrift are penalized by being denied the right to vote. They are placed in the class with criminals, while the profligate, the tramp who works enough to obtain the means by which he can hold body and soul together, is able to qualify under the constitution of Russia and is entitled to a vote. Under that system in the United States the loyal men and women who bought ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... persuade the good Sir Hugh to make me his commissioner and fiduciary in this matter, for it is in his name I must speak, and not in my own. Since she is so far changed as to dote upon this empty profligate courtier, he shall at least do her the justice which is yet in ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... devoted the whole of his attention to that point. And yet no one affirms that he did not sup as he wished. Why then did he not feast well? Because feasting well is feasting with propriety, frugality, and good order; but this man was in the habit of feasting badly, that is, in a dissolute, profligate, gluttonous, unseemly manner. Laelius, then, was not preferring the flavour of sorrel to Gallonius's sturgeon, but merely treating the taste of the sturgeon with indifference; which he would not have done if he had placed the chief good ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... having been betrayed into an act disgraceful to a man of honor. But when all these filial dreams were blasted by the conviction that he owed his being to the husband of Lady Tinemouth, that his mother was the victim of a profligate, that he had sprung from a man who was not merely a villain, but the most wanton, the most despicable of villains, he saw himself bereft of hope and overwhelmed ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... happen'd between two men of quality, and both men of wit too; and the effect was, that the Lord brought the reality of the Devil into the question, and the debate brought the profligate to be a penitent; so in short, the Devil was made ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... who has abused my confidence, and fled from my house, doubtless to some paramour; carrying off with her all the jewels and money on which she could lay her hands. It is possible madame may have heard or seen something of her; she was accompanied in her flight by a base, profligate woman from Paris, whom I, unhappy man, had myself engaged for my wife's waiting-maid, little dreaming what corruption I ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell

... age, in a nation marked for its degeneracy; nursed and reared in a church, as profligate as the world in which it was embedded; persecuted at every step of her career; groping as she did in spiritual desolation and ignorance, nevertheless, she arose to the highest pinnacle of pre-eminence in ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon

... As he spoke, he wound his arms round the form of the fair actress, and endeavored to lift her from the carriage. But the Signora Pisani was not an ordinary person; she had been before exposed to all the dangers to which the beauty of the low-born was subjected amongst a lawless and profligate nobility. She thrust back the assailant with a power that surprised him, and in the next moment the blade of a dagger gleamed before his eyes. "Touch me," said she, drawing herself to the farther end of the carriage, ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... rival, and at last, by a second deception, takes the brother for the sister. To these, which I might call ideal follies, a contrast is formed by the naked absurdities to which the entertaining tricks of the ludicrous persons of the piece give rise, under the pretext also of love: the silly and profligate Knight's awkward courtship of Olivia, and her declaration of love to Viola; the imagination of the pedantic steward Malvolio, that his mistress is secretly in love with him, which carries him so far that he ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... the state had been endangered by the combination of democrats and anarchists in the conspiracy of Catiline. The well-contrived plot of this audacious and profligate man was detected and crushed by the vigilance and energy of the consul Cicero, whose four speeches on the subject, two to the Senate and two to the people, are among the most celebrated of all his orations. Catiline was forced to fly from Rome; ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... of business, to pay for armies of lackeys and employees and private servants of officers and trustees, and for debauches and banquets which vie with any given by the kings and queens of the most extravagant and profligate nations on earth; in addition, enough more to accumulate huge and unnecessary funds—which are juggled with for the enrichment of individuals. Such wicked exactions and shameful extravagances constitute an imposition of the most wanton and criminal character, and those responsible ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... dividends were become due this treachery was discovered, and Mrs Revel found herself reduced to a very narrow income, and wholly deserted by her husband, who knew that he had no chance of obtaining further means of carrying on his profligate career. His death in a duel, which we have before mentioned, took place a few months after the transaction, and Mrs Revel was attacked with that painful disease, a cancer, so deeply seated as to be incurable. Still she was the same frivolous, ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... great things, he must first perfect his character by simplicity's stern law; he must care naught for the haughty frown of the fierce tyrant that lords it in his palace, nor seek client-like for invitations to the board of the profligate, nor deliver himself over to the company of debauchees and drown the fire of his understanding in wine, nor sit in the theatre the hired applauder of the mouthing actor. But whether the citadel of panoplied Minerva allure him with its smile, or the land ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler

... apart from experience, and with which none but a particular class had any concern. At such a time, when Europe lay desolate under the ravage and incessant menace of the French Empire,—when England had an insane King, a profligate Regent, an atrocious Ministry, and a corrupt Parliament,—when the war drained the kingdom of its youth, and every class of its resources,—when there was chronic discontent in the manufacturing districts, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... hunted priests of his own prescribed religion. His resident upper class—though we must allow for many honourable exceptions—was the Squirearchy, satirized by Arthur Young as petty despots with the vices of despots; idle, tyrannical, profligate, boorish, fit founders of the worst social system the modern civilized world has ever known. The slave-owning planters of Carolina were by no means devoid of similar faults, which are the invariable products of arbitrary control over human ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... 1592: educated at Cambridge. Wrote Alphonsus, King of Arragon, James IV., George-a-Greene, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, and other plays. After leading a profligate life, he left behind him a pamphlet entitled, "A Groat's-worth of Wit, bought with a Million of Repentance:" this is full of contrition, and of advice to his fellow-actors and fellow-sinners. It is mainly remarkable for its ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... WISDOM; For know, That GOLD, properly employ'd, May dispense Blessings, And promote the Happiness of Morals; But when hoarded up, Or misapply'd, Is but Trash, that makes Mankind miserable. Remember The unprofitable Servant, Who hid his Talent in a Napkin; And The profligate Son, Who squander'd away his Substance and fed with the Swine. As thou hast got the GOLDEN HEAD, Observe the Golden Mean, Be Good and ...
— Goody Two-Shoes - A Facsimile Reproduction Of The Edition Of 1766 • Anonymous

... London, where I have come, as a good profligate, graceless bachelor, for a day or two; leaving my wife and babbies at the seaside. . . . Heavens! if you were but here at this minute! A piece of salmon and a steak are cooking in the kitchen; it's a very wet day, and I have had a fire lighted; the wine ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens

... kitchen. At that moment Harry was seated outside the cook-house, dressed in a suit of spotless white duck, playing an accordeon; also he wore round his brown neck a thick wreath of white and scarlet flowers. Harry, I may remark, was a dandy and a notorious profligate, but against these natural faults was the fact that he could ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke

... experience of Spanish probity, and thirteen years of struggle for existence: "During all this war, I have not failed a day to offer up my prayers, I have fasted strictly every Friday, I have watched with care over the morals and the conduct of my subjects, I have taken measures everywhere to prevent all profligate intercourse between the sexes";[20] thus nobly trying to recommend himself to the good Bishop, who had always believed in their capacity for temporal and spiritual elevation. He retired to a place named Boya, a dozen leagues from the capital. All the Indians who could prove their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... existed as a rule only a holy, but indifferent and utterly unlyrical, love for the women, the equals of their husbands, wooed usually of the family and solemnly given in marriage without much consultation of their wishes; and a highly passionate and singing, but completely profligate and debasing, desire for mercenary though cultivated creatures like the Delias and Cynthlas of Tibullus and Propertius, or highborn women, descended, like Catullus' Lesbia, in brazen dishonour to ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee

... his hand. "There can't be any love. It's only in name we are husband and wife; we aren't really. In your eyes I am a wild man, and in mine you are a simple peasant woman with no understanding. Are we well matched? I am a free, pampered, profligate man, while you are a working woman, going in bark shoes and never straightening your back. The way I think of myself is that I am the foremost man in every kind of sport, and you look at me with pity.... Is that ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... coil of wreathed water-snakes. Even in her terror, as she dwelt upon his noble features, Eleanor could not help admitting that she beheld the undoubted descendant, and the living likeness of the handsomest and most distinguished of her house—the profligate and criminal Sir Reginald. As her eye, mechanically following this train of thought, wandered for an instant to the haughty portraiture of Sir Reginald, which formed part of the family pictures, and thence to those of his unfortunate lady, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... my daily visits to Hanaruro, that the Wahuaners had lost the simplicity and innocence of character which formerly distinguished them. The profligate habits of the settlers of all nations among them, and of the numerous foreign sailors with whom they constantly associate, have most prejudicially affected their morals. Fraud, theft, and burglary, never ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue

... it by your power of imagination. There is no more effective way of destroying a vice than by deliberately picturing the ultimate results of its indulgence. Persuade a young man who is inclined to be profligate to keep in his mind the image of an old profligate; show him the profligate worn out, desiring without the power to gratify; and if you can get him to think in that way, unconsciously he will begin to ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant

... uneasy, for it did not look to be like a love-match, and I knew that M. d'Epernay had the reputation of a profligate in Quebec, where he was hand in glove with Philippe Lacroix, one of M. Leroux's aids. But a priest has no option when an expression of matrimonial consent is made to him in the presence of two ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert

... their vicious and profligate manners are now as much noted for their piety and good order. Drunkards, profane swearers, liars, quarrelsome persons, etc., are remarkably reformed.... A number of families who had lived apparently without the fear of God, in folly and in vice, without any religious ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... Every chance he gets, he wants to know when I mean to yield. I am, for the sake of business experience, resorting to all sorts of strategy; then, when I qualify, I can afford to snap my fingers in the face of this profligate. You've no idea how much the honor of business young ladies is menaced, Mrs. Roberts. I'm not by any means the only one. The trouble is, very few have the backbone to resist these propositions, which invariably come in ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts

... that Louis XIV. and Louis XV. were kings of any virtue or religion. Both were men of exceedingly immoral habits. We have elsewhere described Louis XIV., but Louis XV., the Well-beloved, was perhaps the greatest profligate of the two. Madame de Pompadour, when she ceased to be his mistress, became his procuress. This infamous woman had the command of the state purse, and she contrived to build for the sovereign a harem, called the Parc-aux-Cerfs, in the park of Versailles, which cost the ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... Mr. Landlord, are these your professions? Your bailmen should sleep ill to-night, for they are likely to answer roundly for this! And whom have we sparking it here? Brawling and swearing and turning into a profligate's tavern a place that should be for the sober entertainment of travellers? Whom have we here—eh! Let me see ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... constant intelligence of our naval and military force and preparation and the means of continuing and conducting the invasion, to the greatest possible annoyance of the country, but the same traffic, intercourse, and intelligence is carried on with great subtility and treachery by profligate citizens, who, in vessels ostensibly navigating our own waters from port to port, under cover of night or other circumstances favoring their turpitude, find means to convey succors or intelligence to the enemy and elude the penalty of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 10. • James D. Richardson

... yet this inconsistent naval secretary liked to flit from flower to flower. He was vain, greedy, wanton, fond of the delight of the eye and the pride of life; he was loving and loose in his manners; he was pious, repentant, profligate; and he deliberately told the whole tale of all his many changes of mood and mistress, of piety and pleasure. One cannot open Pepys at random without finding him at his delightful old games. On the Lord's day he goes to church with Mr. Creed, and hears a good ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang

... call'd him by his name,) Courage! the day at length is ours; 725 And we once more, as conquerors, Have both the field and honour won: The foe is profligate, and run. I mean all such as can; for some This hand hath sent to their long home; 730 And some lie sprawling on the ground, With many a gash and bloody wound. CAESAR himself could never say He got two victories in a day, As I have done, that can say, Twice I 735 In one day, Veni, Vidi, Vici. ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... his own eyes and in those of other people, polluted and defiled by the baseness of the means through which he rose to it. Tho by the profusion of every liberal expense; tho by excessive indulgence in every profligate pleasure—the wretched but usual resource of ruined characters; tho by the hurry of public business, or by the prouder and more dazzling tumult of war, he may endeavor to efface, both from his own memory and from that of other people, the remembrance of what he has done, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various

... in some way connected with the worship of Pantecatl, the male divinity who presided over profligate love, and of Tlazolteotl, the Venus Impudica of the Aztec pantheon; and it is not without significance that the cave-temple of Votan, whose contents were destroyed by the Bishop of Chiapas, in 1691 (see above, p. 39), was located at Tlazoaloyan, both names being derived from a root ...
— Nagualism - A Study in Native American Folk-lore and History • Daniel G. Brinton

... weak, the profligate, the daring. There is old age, watching the play, with its voice like a baby's cry; and the paper whereon it keeps tremulous tally swimming ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend



Words linked to "Profligate" :   spend-all, wasteful, waster, libertine, spender, consumer, debauchee, wastrel, rounder, scattergood, immoral



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