Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




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








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Profligate" Quotes from Famous Books



... to 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 of his amours and crimes survived ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott

... gone so far as to bribe Tip Scammon, worthless, profligate son of the honest old janitor of the High School, to commit a series of robberies from the locker rooms in the school basement while Dick carried the key as monitor there. The "plunder" had been found in Dick's own room at home, and the young man ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock

... to lose their individuality of conviction the moment they begin life's business. Many a young man has sacrificed his individuality on the altar that a profligate companion has built for him. Many a young man who knew right, has allowed some empty-headed street-corner loafer to lower his own high moral tone lest he should seem singular in the little world of society surrounding him. And many a lad whose life promised well at the ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.

... against themselves than against each other. Their principles may be more relaxed on some points than ours, but I doubt much whether a Frenchman would not be as much disgusted in England as an Englishman could possibly be in France; we call them a profligate race and condemn them in ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley

... my son with this monstrous crime? I have had a dreadful presentiment, all along, that he had something to do with it. The end of his wrong career will be the gallows. I have dreamt of it for years. O God! that I should have begotten such a profligate ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... deliberating, and Zarah praying, Lysimachus was carousing amidst boon companions in the city. The ruin and approaching execution of his rival gave unwonted zest to the revels of the profligate Syrian. ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker

... He took her hand and would have raised it to his lips; but she did not forget herself, and gently withdrew it, exclaiming, "O Gifted!" this time with a tone of tender reproach which made him feel like a profligate. He tore himself away, and when at a safe distance flung her a kiss, which she rewarded with ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... of public commotion and civil war 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

... departed from the heart of another of earth's daughters. Vain were the tears of the repentant girl to induce a performance of the promises so solemnly made; false had been and still were the vows of the profligate; but he continued to make them all the more profusely; and hope, at first unwavering, then fainter and fainter, filled the heart of his victim. Once conquered, and the victory was ever after comparatively easy; and having taken something of a ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison

... spirit of the dead man called him, seeming to say: "Come and keep me company. Our old quarrel is over. You and I understand each other now. We are two of a kind, just as like as two hogs from one litter—you the sanctimonious psalm-singer and I the conscienceless profligate—we are brothers at last in ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... he may request a private interview. 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 one form or another to the working girls attractive of ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts

... outward guise of regal office, in his bearing, politeness, address, magnificence, and high-heeled dignity, but he was sensual, ferocious, ignorant, profligate, and superstitious. His greatness was fictitious, his splendor superficial, and his character false. The king was the state, but his mistresses governed. A court thus constituted led the fashions and formed the manners of the people. It stamped the age with ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... this country; and to the evidence which exists of the want of principle which characterised the Court of Charles the Second, these Memoirs are no slight addition. The monarch was heartless and profligate; his ministers, with very few exceptions, were intent alone on the promotion of their own interests; and services and sufferings were nothing in the balance against the influence of the royal mistresses. In such a state of things, merit availed but little; ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe

... Congressional plan of reconstruction be carried out, it will result in republicanizing the Southern States. This would be the political extinction of their party. In fighting against that plan, they are, therefore, fighting for life, and are accordingly more than usually profligate in the character of the stimulants they address to whatever meanness, baseness, dishonesty, lawlessness, and ignorance there may be in the nation. Taxation presses hard on the people, and they have not hesitated ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various

... reason, though in a less degree, he who hopes for favour to his children, or to other surviving connections, is to be listened to with some caution; for the existence of one virtue does not necessarily prove that of another, and he who loves his children and friends may yet be profligate and unprincipled; or, deceiving himself, may think that while his ends are laudable, he ought not to hesitate concerning the means. Besides these more obvious temptations to prevarication, there is another which, though it may lie somewhat deeper, yet experience teaches us to be rooted in ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox

... is 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 ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... Turk, poorly dressed like a 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 ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... become a regular practitioner. However, he had taken orders in the Church of England, but he never regretted the time he had spent in walking the hospitals, for, biding his time, he had now a means of access, which he otherwise might have lacked, to even the most hardened and profligate. Those who would not have called him in as a Christian minister to advise them regarding their souls, were thankful to get him to attend to the ailments of their bodies. Once in a house he never left it without making himself beloved and respected by its inmates, and insuring for ...
— Mountain Moggy - The Stoning of the Witch • William H. G. Kingston

... be supposed that all the female Gypsies are of this high, talented and respectable order: amongst them are many low and profligate females, who sing at taverns or at the various gardens in the neighbourhood, and whose husbands and male connexions subsist by horse jobbing and like kinds of traffic. The principal place of resort of this class is Marina Rotche, ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas

... heretofore. Her account of her brother was far less favourable, though she did not say anything directly to his disadvantage. From all that I could gather from her, I was led to suppose that he was a specimen of the idle, coarse-mannered, profligate "squirearchy"—a result which might naturally have followed from the circumstance of his being, as it were, outlawed from society, and driven for companionship to grades below his own—enjoying, too, the dangerous prerogative of spending a good deal of money. However, you may easily ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... unprofitable servant—he may not have committed either sin or crime, yet never have felt the pulsation of a single unselfish emotion. Another, meanwhile, shall have been hurried by an impulsive nature into fault after fault—shall have been reckless, improvident, perhaps profligate, yet be fitter after all for the kingdom of heaven than the Pharisee—fitter, because against the catalogue of faults there could perhaps be set a fairer list of acts of comparative generosity and self-forgetfulness—fitter, because to those who love much, much is forgiven. ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... 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, and hunger among the rural population, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... annals of legislation, and you will find no precedent for such a profligate act of tyranny, exercised by a majority over their fellow legislators, nor for such an impudent contempt of the rights of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... wanton. They swore, laughed, and talked obscenely. At the place of execution the scene grew still more shocking; and the clergyman who attended was more the subject of ridicule than of their serious attention. The psalm was sung amidst the curses and quarrelling of hundreds of the most abandoned and profligate of mankind. As soon as the poor creatures were half-dead, I was much surprised to see the populace fall to haling and pulling the carcases with so much earnestness as to occasion several warm rencounters and broken ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... the coaches, and voted for Bung. The captain's arguments, too, had produced considerable effect: the attempted influence of the vestry produced a greater. A threat of exclusive dealing was clearly established against the vestry-clerk—a case of heartless and profligate atrocity. It appeared that the delinquent had been in the habit of purchasing six penn'orth of muffins, weekly, from an old woman who rents a small house in the parish, and resides among the original settlers; on her last weekly visit, a message was conveyed to her through the medium of the ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... unlettered Gipsy. After having promised that the morals of the child should be watched over, she was confided to his care. And the author has known a Gipsy parent correct with stripes a grown daughter, for mentioning what a profligate person had talked about. ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb

... is just as likely to hang herself because she despairs of a fair hearing as because she is conscious of guilt. What weighs with me is that they were brought up in the dissolute times of Messalina and Nero and that their relatives were leaders of the most profligate set in Rome, cronies of Vitellius and his coterie. But although Cornelia was bred and raised in the same social atmosphere, I am quite as sure of her innocence as all the world was the day she was buried ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... death of the soldier boy to the will of God; to declare all the Jews, against whom the charge of murder has been brought on mere surmises, free from all suspicion; to turn over the soldier woman Terentyeva, for her profligate conduct, to a ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... it is to the illiberal strictures of a profligate press I now allude; among the London journalists, none (luckily for themselves) have dared to question the veracity of my statements: they know me, and they know that I am IN LONDON. If I can use the pen, I can ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the thing, the most essentially requisite; and much less certainly will they think it to be so with respect to this present World, if they find their pious Instructor not only to choose the Society of Persons Profligate and Debauch'd for his Friends and Companions; but also (on all occasions) to labour the promotion of the like Men to Employments of the highest Truth, in preference of others of acknowledg'd Integrity and Sobriety of Life: The avow'd Reason whereof being only ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham

... himself to witness the sincerity of my attachment to him. He is now in a place where he can neither deceive nor be deceived. I flatter myself that he pities my errors, especially when he recalls his own." St. Augustine had been somewhat profligate in his younger days. ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... It does not need the alleged contrast between his professions and his practice to enforce this conclusion. Many men have affected the religious habit and the religious bearing while their lives were privately profligate without deserving to be called insane except in the sense in which any criminal excess may be regarded pathologically as a proof of madness. Even if it were true that the long-haired and black-habited George Gordon were the debauched profligate that Hannah ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... sinning &c v.; wicked, iniquitous, immoral, unrighteous, wrong, criminal; naughty, incorrect; unduteous^, undutiful. unprincipled, lawless, disorderly, contra bonos mores [Lat.], indecorous, unseemly, improper; dissolute, profligate, scampish; unworthy; worthless; desertless^; disgraceful, recreant; reprehensible, blameworthy, uncommendable; discreditable, disreputable; Sadistic. base, sinister, scurvy, foul, gross, vile, black, grave, facinorous^, felonious, nefarious, shameful, scandalous, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... soul's conflicts and struggles with evil in its journey through life, it is unsurpassed. It is believed that no other book except the Bible has gone through so many editions or attained such a popularity in all languages. It has been generally understood that Bunyan's early life was a very profligate one, but some have thought that his terrible self-accusations in after years may have arisen from the height of his religious fervour and Puritan strictness, which made him look on dancing and bell-ringing as deadly sins. This idea is satisfactorily ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home

... refinement: the true, honest, patriotic heart of America? Here and there, were drops of its blood and life, but they scarcely coloured the stream of desperate adventurers which sets that way for profit and for pay. It is the game of these men, and of their profligate organs, to make the strife of politics so fierce and brutal, and so destructive of all self-respect in worthy men, that sensitive and delicate-minded persons shall be kept aloof, and they, and such as they, be left to battle out their ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens

... that therein at some time or another would be found a clew to the new boarder's past history—or possibly some evidence of such duplicity as the good lady suspected he might be guilty of. She had read that Byron was profligate, and that Poe was addicted to drink, and she was impressed with the idea that poets generally were bad men, and she regarded the waste-basket as a possible means of protecting herself against any such idiosyncrasies of her new-found genius as would operate to ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs

... were justly objectionable to Mr. Grimshaw; they attracted numbers of profligate people to Haworth, and brought a match to the combustible materials of the place, only too ready to blaze out into wickedness. The story is, that he tried all means of persuasion, and even intimidation, to have the races discontinued, ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell

... pass the rest of the evening, appeared hollow and improbable. We thought the hero something of a bore, with his patience and goodness; and as for the heroine, pursued by the attentions of the rich profligate, we doubted if she were any ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... supper—a cold fowl and a bottle of Burgundy—a profligate supper, fit for such abandoned characters; and over it you shall tell me how the world looked to you when you were ten ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... not less terrible man, struck him favorably, and his hopes rose as a sunbeam fell on her shining hair, which the lady Berenike had arranged with her own hand, twining it with strands of white Bombyx. She must appear, even to this ruthless profligate, as the very type ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... wife, "poor wretch," of whom he stood in some awe; and 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 sermon from the red-faced parson. ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang

... changed the want, and have changed 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 shrink from that which before attracted him; the very hideousness of the ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant

... element, everywhere at 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

... grasping spirit, it so happened, that wherever it was tithe-free the rents exacted were also enormous, and seen as—supposing tithe had not an existence—no country ever could suffer to become the basis of valuation, or to settle down into a system. In fact, such was the spirit, and so profligate the condition of the Established Church for a long lapse of time, both before and after the Union, that we may lay it down as a general principle, that everything was rewarded in ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... copy by him (Stiggins), in which case he might calculate on arriving, sooner or later at the comfortable conclusion, that, like him, he was a most estimable and blameless character, and that all his acquaintances and friends were hopelessly abandoned and profligate wretches. Which consideration, he said, could not but ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... and favorites staked fortunes at the gaming tables, outran each other in devising costly dresses, contrived novel equipages and unique dwellings. In his superb Court he found all the elements required to satisfy his pride, and glorify his reign. The Sun King was the most profligate host in all history. Determined to outdo the fabulous luxury of the feasts of Lucullus in early Roman times, and to outshine the storied splendor of Oriental princes, he entertained his Court and guests with lavish liberality, superbly indifferent ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne

... him with his rattan in public, bullied him for submitting to such treatment, and imprisoned him for trying to run away from it. He came at last out of purgatory; and Europe felt him to her farthest bounds. This bookish, philosophizing, verse-making cynic and profligate was soon to approve himself the first warrior of his time, and one of ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... alliance has already preserved the liberty of Piedmont. If it had been established sooner, it might have preserved that of Hesse, and have saved Europe from the revolting spectacle of the constitutional resistance of a whole people against an usurping tyrant and a profligate minister crushed by brutal, ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville

... has produced the most happy effects on multitudes of men. It has enlightened the most ignorant; softened the most hardened; reclaimed the most profligate; converted the most estranged; purified the most polluted; exalted the most degraded; and plucked the most endangered from hell to heaven. What was it that transformed the persecuting and blaspheming Saul ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... 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, the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 18, 1893 • Various

... such appointments to great trusts as might secure the persons intrusted from the temptations of unlawful emolument, and, what in all cases is the greatest security, given a lawful gratification to the natural passions of men. Matrimony is to be used, as a true remedy against a vicious course of profligate manners; fair and lawful emoluments, and the just profits of office, are opposed to the unlawful means which might be made use of to supply them. For, in truth, I am ready to agree, that for any man to expect a series of sacrifices without a return in ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... rest—check the sigh of envy; there is a ring at the bell—hurrying footsteps on the stairs—a jarring sound against the polished door, and in bursts the rich man's son, his brow haggard, his eyes fierce and red. He is a notorious profligate; gambling is his food and drink, debauchery his glory and his ruin. Would you be that father? Go back to your honest sons and look in their faces; throw the bright locks from their brows, and bless God that there the angel triumphs over the brute; ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur

... difference 'the Duchesse' ever found was, that her Sunday parties were less well attended; but this was because the world (which often grows religious, but never grows moral) had begun to take it into its head that it would keep holy the Sabbath night. The worst part of the story was, that this profligate blackguard bullied and plundered her without mercy or shame, and she had managed very nearly to ruin herself before her death. What she had left, she bequeathed to her husband, notwithstanding ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... confuse the situation, there occurred at this time the contest of John Wilkes, backed by the London mob, against the Grafton Ministry. This demagogue, able {45} and profligate, had already come into conflict with the Grenville Ministry in 1765, and had been driven into exile. Now, in 1768, he returned and was repeatedly elected to the Commons, and as often unseated by the vindictive ministerial majority. Riots and bloodshed ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith

... the siege and the pressure of want; while despair drove many of those who remained to courses of reckless vice. Godfrey, firm to his duty and strong in faith, aided the exertions of the clergy in encouraging the spirits of his troops, and restraining their profligate excesses. A timely supply of provisions from some of the Armenian monasteries, and a brilliant victory obtained by Bohemond and the Count of Toulouse over an army which the Sultans of Aleppo and Damascus had sent to the succor of Antioch, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various

... fashion go out for their shopping and their calls, and he related all the scandals of their conduct, false or true. He dwelt on all these stories and calumnies with a horrid pleasure, as though he rejoiced in the vileness of humanity. Did this mean the facile misanthropy of a profligate, accustomed to such conversations at the club, or in sporting circles, during which each man lays bare his brutal egotism, and voluntarily exaggerates the depth of his own disenchantment that he may boast more largely of his experience? Was this the cynicism ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne

... recreation-ground near the city, a view is obtained of the amusements of the rich and the profligate. We see a multitude seated around a cockpit intent on a cock-fight; but the cocks are quails, not barnyard fowls. Here, too, is a smaller and more exclusive circle stooping over a pair of crickets engaged in deadly ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin

... Let no mistaken girl fancy she gives a proof of her wit by her want of piety, or that a contempt of things serious and sacred will exalt her understanding, or raise her character even in the opinion of the most avowed male infidels. For one may venture to affirm, that with all their profligate ideas, both of women and of religion, neither Bolingbroke, Wharton, Buckingham, nor even Lord Chesterfield himself, would have esteemed a woman the ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More

... Now, the profligate is he who wishes to spread this crimson of conscious joy over everything; to have excitement at every moment; to paint everything red. He bursts a thousand barrels of wine to incarnadine the streets; and sometimes (in his last madness) he ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton

... over another's sin, and watched another's remorse with pangs as sharp as if the crime had been his own, has said it. Every parent has said it who ever received back a repentant daughter, and opened out for her a new hope for life. Every mother has said it who ever by her hope against hope for some profligate, protested for a love deeper and wider than that of society. Every man has said it who forgave a deep wrong. See then, why and how the church absolves. She only exercises that power which belongs to every son of man. If society were Christian—if society, by its forgiveness and its exclusion, ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson

... and is fragmentary withal, the narrative of the child Samuel being the central theme, around which are grouped the tribulations of Elkanah and Hannah, the service of Eli the priest, the revels of his profligate sons, and the ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton

... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... fancy by attempting to trace analogies in detail, where none are intended by the Holy Spirit. The true church of Christ is compared to a virtuous and fruitful woman, (ch. xii. 5;) and the apostate church is symbolized by a fruitful but profligate woman, (ch. xvii. 5.) Then both are also represented by two cities, which are equally contrasted. As the women differ in their outward adornment, (chs. xix. 8, xvii. 4,) so do the cities in the quality of population, ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele

... rank he occupies. The chevalier de Cressy, forgetful of his being your guest, and of respecting the honor of all beneath your roof, has dared to carry on a base intrigue with my woman, in whose apartment you will find him at this very minute. A conduct so profligate and insulting fills me with an indignation which I think that you, sir, after what you have heard, cannot but partake." The marquis de l'Hopital, who did not see the thing in the same serious light, sought to appease the ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon

... contribute to its political and material well-being. Congruously with this frame of mind, Russia has not the heart to deal with Bulgaria as she would deal under similar provocation with Roumania or Greece. Like the baby cripple, or the profligate son, this wayward little nation ever remains the spoiled child. Hence, do what harm she may to Russia, she is not merely immune from the natural consequences of her unfriendly acts, but certain to reap fruits ripened by the sacrifices of those whose ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... enough to know that Shakespeare, the sweetest spirit and finest mind in all literature, should have degraded himself to pretend such an affection for the profligate Herbert as has given occasion for misconstruction. It is bad enough, I say, to know that Shakespeare could play flunkey to this extent; but after all, that is the worst that can be urged against him, and it is so much better than ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... tact and mildness, however, Mary won the respect of the nobles and the admiration of the people, until a series of marital troubles and blunders—her marriage with a worthless cousin, Henry Darnley, and then her scandalous marriage with Darnley's profligate murderer, the earl of Bothwell—alienated her people from her and drove her into exile. She abdicated the throne of Scotland in favor of her infant son, James VI, who was reared a Protestant and subsequently became King James I of England, and ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... beseech you to have no dealing with the being whose vile accents I heard but a moment ago. A man of depraved instincts and profligate ways, he is no fit companion for a young and innocent girl. Moreover, viper-like, he bears malice towards us, who have shielded him ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates

... a zealot in politics of religion, the qualities of forbearance, candor, and veracity; to the enthusiast of science and philosophy; to the bigot of liberality and improvement; to the miser of benevolence and suffering; to the profligate of industry and frugality; to the misanthrope of philanthropy and patriotism; to the degraded sinner of virtue, truth, and heaven; but what do they know of your meaning? How are they the wiser for your instruction? You ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch

... 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 witnesses. ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert

... situation at the marble house. With the vise-like memory of an old soldier, Simpson had retained various anecdotes not entirely to the credit of the self-promoted Major Alan Hawke, and had partly supplied the hiatus between the sudden disappearance of the desperate lieutenant, a rake gambler and profligate, and the return of the prosperous and debonnaire Major en re'traite. "Don't let him work too long around Miss Nadine, Major Hardwicke," said the wary Simpson. "Sly and quiet as he seems, he's surely here for no good. I know him of old. ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... that we kept good company. We were outcasts, and were thrown of necessity amongst those who had been cast out. But the standards of life vary with those who live, and I never could see that a man was less of a thief because he thieved from a throne, or less a profligate because he debauched a princess. I was, no doubt, in advance of my time; these are the ideas of Monsieur Voltaire. I believe that I saw a great deal of iniquity, for the taverns and gaming-dens to which I sometimes resorted for shelter or entertainment were filled with ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett

... to believe that the traffic is on the increase," and advocates "vigorous efforts."[45] His message in December of the same year acknowledges: "That the American flag is grossly abused by the abandoned and profligate of other nations is but too probable."[46] The special message of 1845 explains at length that "it would seem" that a regular policy of evading the laws is carried on: American vessels with the knowledge of the owners are chartered by notorious slave dealers in Brazil, aided by ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois

... evil fate, In him was held a crime of state. A wicked monster on the bench, Whose fury blood could never quench; As vile and profligate a villain, As modern Scroggs, or old Tressilian; Who long all justice had discarded, Nor feared he God, nor man regarded; Vowed on the Dean his rage to vent, And make him of his zeal repent: But Heaven his innocence ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... separation, there was the horrid dread of falling into the hands of Master Andrew. He was known to us all as being a most cruel wretch,—a common drunkard, who had, by his reckless mismanagement and profligate dissipation, already wasted a large portion of his father's property. We all felt that we might as well be sold at once to the Georgia traders, as to pass into his hands; for we knew that that would be our inevitable condition,—a condition ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass

... with cheaters or cozeners your life, Nor waste it on profligate beauty; And when you are wedded be kind to your wife, And ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell

... settled, 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 opposition, ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... in baseball games from which all elements of honest, manly sport have been taken away; brutal slugging matches between professional pugilists; horseraces conducted by gamblers for gamblers; the sickening, details of the latest scandal among the profligate, idle rich? ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo

... Thou rememberest thy words to my adjutant during those maneuvers in Pi-Bailos? I will remind thee: Thou didst tell him that it was necessary to limit the abuses and license of the pharaohs. But today Thou art supporting the childish pretensions of the greatest profligate ever known to Egypt." ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... visits to the field of work, where the streets were full of misery and the slum life rampant. A few short blocks away was another world—a world of palaces. Jim had never before seen massed misery; he had never before seen profligate luxury, and the shock of contrast brought to him the sudden, overwhelming thought: "These people don't want preaching, they want fair play. This is not a religious question, it is an economic question." ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... to our existence, was, it was said, the chief hero and Saviour of the Mesopotamian ethical scheme. Then followed a paragraph giving other examples of such heroes and Saviours being born of some profligate intercourse between God and mortal. Then followed a paragraph—but Evan did not understand it. He read it again and then again. Then he did understand it. The glass fell in ringing fragments ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton

... exile, having been banished to Corsica by the emperor Claudius, on suspicion of an illicit intercourse with the profligate Julia. The islands in the Tuscan sea were the Tasmania of the Roman empire, places of transportation for political offenders, and those who fell under the imperial frown—which was the same thing. ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... Pope obedient to these orders, except when there was an occasion of serving Savage. On his second visit to Bristol (when he returned from Glamorganshire,) Savage had been thrown into the jail of the city. One person only interested himself for this hopeless profligate, and was causing an inquiry to be made about his debts at the time Savage died. So much Dr. Johnson admits; but he forgets to mention the name of this long suffering friend. It was Pope. Meantime, let us not be supposed to believe the lying legend of Savage; he was doubtless ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... then alive, was Mr. Monkton's younger brother, Stephen. He was an unmarried man, possessing a fine estate in Scotland; but he lived almost entirely on the Continent, and bore the reputation of being a shameless profligate. The family at Wincot held almost as little communication with him as with ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins

... will now no longer be necessary to persons who desire to reside in the settled provinces of India. The power of arbitrary deportation is withdrawn. Unless, therefore, we mean to leave the natives exposed to the tyranny and insolence of every profligate adventurer who may visit the East, we must place the European under the same power which legislates for the Hindoo. No man loves political freedom more than I. But a privilege enjoyed by a few individuals, in the midst of a vast population who do not enjoy it, ought not to ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... impulse had suggested. Though so successful a gallant, he had not acquired the ruthless egotism of the sensualist; and his conduct to women often evinced the weakness of giddy youth rather than the cold deliberation of profligate manhood. Thus in his veriest vices there was a spurious amiability, a seductive charm; while in the graver affairs of life the intellectual susceptibility of his nature served but to quicken his penetration and stimulate ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the young profligate was applauded by several of his companions, and away they flew to the bay of Blawhooly, from whence they never returned. The two vessels were observed all at once to stop in the bosom of the bay, on the spot where their hulls ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous

... are inveterate drinkers of spirits, spending all their earnings on it. They have almost a monopoly as to burning corpses and handling all dead bodies. They eat all animals which have died a natural death, and are particularly fond of pork of this description. "Notwithstanding profligate habits, many of them attain the age of eighty or ninety; and it is not till sixty or sixty-five that their hair begins to get white." The Domarr are a mountain race, nomads, shepherds, and robbers. Travelers speak of them as "gypsies." A specimen which we have of ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland

... while things go on rightly, and governments, and clergy, and people do right, Christ is there then, filling them all with His Spirit and guiding them all to their duty; but that when evil times come, and rulers are idle, and clergy dumb dogs, and the rich tyrannous, and the poor profligate, and men are crying for work and cannot get it, and every man's hand is against his fellow, and no one knows what to do or think; and on earth is distress of nations with perplexity, men's hearts failing ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley

... only to the good, if it were known that the charms and attractions of beauty and wisdom, and wit, were reserved only for the pure; if, in one word, something of a similar rigor were exerted to exclude the profligate and abandoned of society, as is shown to those, who have fallen from virtue,—how much would be done to re-enforce the motives to moral purity among us, and impress on the minds of all a reverence for the sanctity and ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... antiquary, who was born in 1627, just twenty years after Popham's death. "For severall yeares," this collector says of the Chief Justice, "he addicted himself but little to the studie of the lawes, but profligate company, and was wont to take a purse with them. His wife considered her and his condition, and at last prevailed with him to lead another life and to stick to the studie of the lawe, which, upon her importunity, ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... is not half their evil: they are filled with every corruption which poverty and wickedness can generate between them; with all the shameless and profligate enormities that can be produced by the impudence of ignominy, the rage of want, and the malignity of despair. In a prison the awe of the publick eye is lost, and the power of the law is spent; there are few fears, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... 'That dull profligate and parricide,' replied Varus, 'not content with killing himself with his vices, and his father by connivance, must needs destroy his country by his fatuity. I confess, that till that order be ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... when he was broken in means and character, he had married. The lady of his choice had been chosen as an heiress; but there had been some slip between that cup of fortune and his lip; and she, proud and beautiful, for such she had been—had neither relieved nor softened the poverty of her profligate old lord. ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... handsome woman, with a pale complexion, high solid forehead, regular features, thin, pinched, self-satisfied mouth. My interview was very short. I plunged into the middle of the affair, but had scarcely mentioned the word husband, when she interrupted me with, "I presume you have lent this profligate person money, and want me to pay you." She paused, and then said, "He shall not have a farthing." As she spoke, her white face ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren

... their own clique. They have never allowed their own profound ignorance of anything (Greek for instance) to throw even an air of hesitation into their oracular decision on the matter. They set an example of profligate contempt for truth, of which the success was in proportion to the effrontery; and when their prosperity had filled the market with competitors, they cried out against their own reflected sin, as if they had never committed it, or were entitled to a monopoly ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock

... Carmichael, formerly a bailie of Edinburgh, was one of Sharp's favourites, and one of his numerous commissioners for suppressing conventicles in Fife. He was a licentious profligate, greedy of money, and capable of undertaking any job, however vile. This man's enormities were at last so unbearable that he became an object of general detestation, and his excessive exactions had ruined so ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne

... 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 abuse ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... part of it; and, bad in itself as any can be, must of necessity bring in others after it. Indeed it hath already brought in such dissoluteness and contempt of principle in the higher part of the world, and such profligate intemperance, and fearlessness of committing crimes, in the lower, as must, if this impiety stop not, become absolutely fatal. And God knows, far from stopping, it receives, through the ill designs of some persons, and the inconsiderateness of ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... good-fellowship, under which his gross egoism lay concealed that it might be more securely mischievous when it went loose. His amiability was an imposture, a dangerous harlequinade; the man was bad. It was a plausible scoundrel, a vulgar profligate with a handsome face and a few cheap talents—had he not been reduced to stealing the picture of his friend?—whom these two women had loved, to whom one of them was married. Ah, the sting of it lay there! Good or bad, he was Eve's husband, ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... his nose in the air towards the majestic moon,—"three pounds!—a fabulous sum! Who has three pounds to throw away? Dukes, with a hundred thousand a year in acres, have not three pounds to draw out of their pockets in that reckless, profligate manner. Three pounds!—what could I not buy for three pounds? I could buy the Dramatic Library, bound in calf, for three pounds; I could buy a dress coat for three pounds (silk lining not included); ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... man that had yet appeared in English politics; and his political enemies did not fail to make the most of his well-known immorality. In his Notes to Macky's Characters Swift described Wharton as "the most universal villain that ever I knew." On his death in 1715 he was succeeded by his profligate son, Philip, who was created Duke of Wharton ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... me?" said the old man, turning to his grandson. "Why do you bring your profligate companions here? I am poor. You have chosen your own path, follow it. Leave Nell and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... to entertain you with pictures of our decadent society, pictures that really do credit to the vividness and detail of his imagination. Meanwhile our press assures the respectable Briton that Berlin is the most profligate city in Europe, and that scurrilous German novels about the German army will show him what the rotten state of things really is in that much over-rated organisation. But these national amenities are misleading. The bulk of the nation in both countries is ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick

... Admonitions to him were like the falling rain on the back of the duck. He early acquired a passion for gambling. His father knew it, but hoped that time would work his cure. He, himself, I learned, had been somewhat of a profligate. ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane

... profligate," cried Lisbeth, "you have not even asked me how your children are? What are you going to do for Adeline? I, at any rate, will take her ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... Shot's wife goes rumblin' out on the same stage. Monte starts to tell us what happens when he returns, but the old profligate ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis

... pathetic and classic elegance of Fenelon, the mildest of all enthusiasts; a race of men who towered above the genius of their country and of their religion; passed away without a successor. In the beginning of the 18th century, the most profligate man in France was an ecclesiastic, the Cardinal Dubois, prime minister to the most profligate prince in Europe, the Regent Orleans. The country was convulsed with bitter personal disputes between Jesuit and Jansenist, fighting even to mutual ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... better," said Hardy; "at any rate the youngsters there are marchers and fighters; besides, one would be in the ranks and know one's place. Here one is by way of being a gentleman—God save the mark! A young officer, be he never such a fop or profligate, must take his turn at guard, and carry his life in his hand all over the world wherever he is sent, or he has to leave the service. Service!—yes, that's the word; that's what makes every young red-coat respectable, though he mayn't think it. He is serving his Queen, his country—the devil, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... got one of these misguided cap-an'-ball six-shooters that's built doorin' the war; an' I cuts that hardware loose! This weepon seems a born profligate of lead, for the six chambers goes off together. Which you should have seen the Chevy Chasers dodge! An' well they may; that broadside ain't in vain! My aim is so troo that one of the r'armost dogs ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis

... night a young man, Charles de Kergrist,—a profligate, a gambler, crowning his scandalous life with the vilest and meanest act,—did come and kill himself under my window. The next day a great outcry arose against me. Three days later the brother of that wretched madman, a M. Rene de Kergrist, came and held M. Elgin to account. But do you know what ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau

... with frank agreeable manners, and a large amount of good sense and judgment. He had managed even to win the good opinion of Miss Sarah Pemberton, who was not in general inclined to think well of young men especially of officers in the army, whom she designated generally as an impudent, profligate set, with fluent tongues and insinuating manners, whose chief occupation in life was to break the hearts of young girls ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston

... William the Third revived the hopes of the Jacobite party; and to that centre of attraction the ruined and the restless, the aspiring and the profligate, alike turned their regards. Never was so great a variety of character, and so great a diversity of motives displayed in any cause, as in the various attempts which were made to secure the restoration of the Stuarts. On some natures those opinions, those schemes, which were ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson

... counsel of the ungodly." For it is plain that a man will never learn God's will if he takes counsel from ungodly men who care nothing for God's will, and do not believe that God's will governs the world. Neither must he, as the Psalm says, 'stand in the way of sinners'—of profligate and dishonest men who break God's law. For if he follows their ways, and breaks God's law himself, it is plain that he will learn little or nothing about God's law, save in the way of bitter punishment. For let him but break ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley

... exclaimed Lord Cadurcis, in a fury, stamping with passion; 'are these fit terms to use when speaking of the most abandoned profligate of his age? A man whose name is synonymous with infamy, and which no one dares to breathe in civilised life; whose very blood is pollution, as you will some day feel; who has violated every tie, and derided every principle, ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli

... begun by getting deeply into debt, and had thus in fact bound himself to overthrow the republic. He fomented anarchy to prepare the way for his dictatorship. He shrank from no accomplice however tainted, not even from Catiline; from no act however profligate or even inhuman. Abusing his authority as a magistrate, for party purposes, he tries to put to a cruel and ignominious death Rabirius, an aged and helpless man, for an act done in party warfare thirty years before. The case of Vettius ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... his trust for money, is for him to stand on the same intellectual level with a monkey that scalds its throat with boiling water because it is thirsty. A drunkard is one who exchanges ambrosia and nectar for garbage. A profligate is one who declines an invitation to banquet with the gods that he may dine out of an ash barrel. What blight is to the vine, sin is to a man. When the first thief appeared in Plymouth colony a man was withdrawn from the fields to make locks for the houses; ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis

... profligate, servants, from their situation, from all that they see of the society of their superiors, and from the early prejudices of their own education, learn to admire that wealth and rank to which they are bound to pay homage. The luxuries ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth

... who can't live by printing papers we would say, in the language of the profligate boarder when dunned for his bill, being told at the same time by the keeper of the house that he couldn't board people for nothing, "Then sell out to somebody who can!" In other words, fly from a business which don't ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne

... Quality—devote themselves. He is no Puritan; (for I did ever hate your sanctimonious Banbury-men); but he has a Proper Sense of what is due to the Honour and Figure of his family, and refrains from soiling his hands with bales of dice and worse implements among the profligate crew to be met with, not alone at Newmarket, or at the "Dog and Duck," or "Hockley Hole," but in Pall-Mall, and in the very ante-chambers of St. James's, no cater-cousin of the Groom-Porter he. He rides his hackney, as a gentleman should, nor have I prohibited him from occasionally ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... Europe, intelligible to each other, as unhappily we are not, by the universal knowledge and use of that mediaeval Latin, which might distress the Ciceronian ears of a pedant of the Renaissance, but was a good, useful, and adaptable language. It was a turbulent, disorderly, brutal, profligate, and drunken world, for the students were as hard drinkers as the citizens, but it was animated, it was made alive by a true passion for knowledge, by an unwearied and never ...
— Progress and History • Various

... life-course reading has shown this entire evening. We do not gain the high art of holding the good which we gain, so profligate are we. Then we like to blame our friends or the fates for our poor judgment and our obtuseness. Until we begin to work as though we belong to and believe in an immortal life, as an inheritance, the great human family cannot enjoy that useful cohesion that belongs to mankind ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara

... in intertangled elf-locks, like a 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 ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... o'nights; not a silly man exactly, but a weak one. Now of all the idle persons of this town, Richard Houseman was the most inclined to this way of life. He had been a soldier—had wandered a good deal about the world—was a bold, talking, reckless fellow—of a character thoroughly profligate; and there were many stories afloat about him, though none were clearly made out. In short, he was suspected of having occasionally taken to the high road; and a stranger who stopped once at my little inn, assured me privately, that though he could not ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... and equitably between the few who are most nearly of your own blood, and the many who in kinship are only a little farther removed. If you regard only those reared under your own roof, your cherished estate will soon be scattered, perhaps wasted by profligate heirs in riotous living, to their own ruin, and you and your fortune will quickly be forgotten. Give a share—pay a tithe to your more distant and more numerous kindred—to the general public, and you will be ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard

... of nonsense talked, and by very sensible people, too, about most drunken fools! He was a spender and a profligate, was old Marshall Langham; a tavern loafer, but a man of parts. Yes, he had a bit of a brain, when he was sober and of a ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester

... millions against misery and hunger. Remember that China is reduced to the expedient of throwing its children into the water, according to the accounts of travelers. Now this production of two children is really the whole of marriage. The superfluous pleasures of marriage are not only profligate, but involve an immense loss to the man, as I will now demonstrate. Compare then with this poverty of result, and shortness of duration, the daily and perpetual urgency of other needs of our existence. Nature reminds ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac

... silly varlet here, this beardless young profligate? Ha, youngster, thou shalt pay for thy bold, ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... however small, that has not its expiation. Nay, do not weep. Am I so ugly? Why should you dread me so, madame? I am a great admirer of your charms, desirous to know you better. Nay, have no suspicions as to my morality—I am no profligate. I came to the ball to-night ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell

... extent as to preclude his sharing prominently in the diplomatic part of his mission; Colonel George Cartwright, a soldier, well-meaning but devoid of sympathy and ignorant of the conditions that confronted him; Sir Robert Carr, the worst of the four, unprincipled and profligate and without control either of his temper or his passions; and, lastly, Maverick himself, opposed to the existing order in Massachusetts and convinced of the necessity of radical changes in the constitution of the colony. Nicolls was liked and respected; Cartwright ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews

... jealousies, and there was a saying that "if a naval officer were to be roasted, another officer could always be found to turn the spit." The head of the Admiralty, Lord Sandwich, was a man of much ability, but also of profligate character, as well public as private. He doubtless wished the success of his department,—under the terrible chances of war no chief can do otherwise, for the responsibility of failure must fall upon his own head; but through ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan

... delayed by Charles II.'s very vices. Clarendon's fall had left him surrounded by profligate aides, too timid and too indolent to face the resolute men of Massachusetts. They often discussed the contumacy of the colony, but went no further than words. Massachusetts was even encouraged, in 1668, forcibly to reassert its authority in Maine, against rule either by the king or by Sir Ferdinanda ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... began," he said, "I was one of the most abandoned and profligate young men living; before it ended I was a new creature. The world was ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth

... from fields ye have won, Your toils are not closed in the deeds ye have done; Touch the souls of each laggard and profligate son, The greed and the sloth, and the cowardice shame; Till we rise to complete the great work ye've begun, And with freedom make conquest ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... conduct. This unhappy lady, whom we have already mentioned as the daughter of Sir Thomas Lake, Secretary of State, had the misfortune to be sincerely attached to her handsome but profligate husband, whose neglect and frequent irregularities she had pardoned, until the utter estrangement, occasioned by his passion for the Countess of Exeter, filled her with such trouble, that, overpowered at length by anguish, she complained ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... 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 ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell

... Byng, Plummer, &c., for the noble, disinterested part he takes, while I am looked upon as a black sheep; of which I console myself, and have reason to console myself, when I see the views and motives of some great political characters to be so profligate and abandoned. Lord North and Charles Fox acting together in public life, is a new and extraordinary scene! Many people say it was only for last night; but I believe the arrangement has completely taken place, and the overthrow of the present Ministry is consequently certain. ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... eagerness to publish their right, took from them all consideration of what they might make her suffer. Mr Eggleston, she found, permitted himself to be wholly governed by his son; his son was a needy and profligate spendthrift, and by throwing the management of the affair into the hands of an attorney, craftily meant to shield himself from the future resentment of Delvile, to whom, hereafter, he might affect, at his convenience, to disapprove Mr Carn's behaviour, while Mr Carn ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... 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 ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria

... When we speak of an immoral man, we are commonly understood to attack the foundations of his character; to designate some gross vice of which he is guilty, and to speak of him as profane, or licentious, or profligate, or dishonest, or as unworthy of our confidence and respect. Now, we by no means intend to use the word in such a wide sense, when we say that this business is immoral. We do not mean to intimate that in no circumstances a man may be engaged in ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... that in which William Rufus was found dead in the New Forest, 'with the arrow either of a hunter or an assassin in his breast.' According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, several 'prodigies' preceded the death of this profligate and extravagant monarch. Thus it is recorded that 'at Pentecost blood was observed gushing from the earth at a certain town of Berkshire, even as many asserted who declared that they had seen it. And after this, on ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... other, and were fools, traitors, and egotists generally, after the customary fashion of human pigmies, —that they set up a Sham to serve as Religion, Gold being their only god,—that the rich wantoned in splendid luxury, and wilfully neglected the poor,—that the King was a showy profligate, ruled by a treacherous courtesan, just like many other famous Kings and Princes, who, because of their stalwart, martial bearing, and a certain surface good-nature, manage to conceal their vices from the too lenient eyes of the subjects ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... Order; yet checked by the rights and influences of the clergy and the native nobility, and by the customs and ancient laws of the island. This trust the Knights had, with the blackest treason and the most profligate perjury, betrayed and abandoned. The right of government of course reverted to the landed proprietors and the clergy. Animated by a just sense of this right, the Maltese had risen of their own accord, had contended for it in defiance ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... moneylenders' circulars, belladonna and cantharides. But most astounding of all were the contents of the widows' prie-Dieu. In this devotional article of furniture were stored all the inmost secrets of her profligate career. Affectionate letters from the elderly gentleman on whom she had imposed a supposititious child lay side by side with a black-edged card, on which was written the last message of a young lover who had killed himself on her ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving

... loathsome is a kind of pedantic and profligate literature, perfectly devoid of all natural sentiment, full of self-contradictions; and, in fact, the contrast to those maidens in my work, whom I have, during half my lifetime, seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears. And though I will not presume to estimate them as superior ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... OF, son of the preceding; served under Charles I. in the Civil War, was at the battle of Worcester; became minister of Charles II.; a profligate courtier and an unprincipled ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... debas'd With vile impurities the comic muse, And made her delicate mouth pronounce such things As would disgust a Wilmot in full blood, Or shock an Atheist roaring o'er his cups[13] O shameful profligate abuse of powers, Indulg'd to you for higher, nobler purposes, Than to pollute the sacred fount of virtue, Which, plac'd by heaven, springs ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various

... 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, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... performing acrobats, and conjurers. Sleek and pampered priests in yellow robes were met at every turn, a class who exercise a certain influence over the people through their superstition, but who command no personal respect. We were told that they are a profligate set, like too many of their class elsewhere, and enjoyed a certain immunity from the laws. Before the temples was seen in one or two instances a theatrical performance in progress, which seemed rather incongruous, but upon inquiry this ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou



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



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com