Word Wise

This weeks word:

wastrel (ˈweɪstrəl)
noun
1. a wasteful person; spendthrift; prodigal; someone who dissipates resources self-indulgently
2. an idler or vagabond

Word Origin & History
"spendthrift, idler," 1847, from waste (v.) with pejorative suffix (cf.mongrel , scoundrel , doggerel ).

SYNONYMS:
waster, prodigal, squanderer, profligate - a recklessly extravagant consumer, layabout, loser, shirker, good-for-nothing, piker (Austral. & N.Z. slang), drone, loafer, waster, skiver (Brit. slang), idler, ne'er-do-well, malingerer, saddo (Brit. slang), bludger(Austral. & N.Z. informal) Her husband is a workshy, good-for-nothing wastrel.


ANTONYMS:
miser, hoarder, penny pincher

References in classic literature:On the sideboard, between fluted Sheraton knife-cases, stood a decanter of Haut Brion, and another of the old Lanning port (the gift of a client), which the wastrel Tom Lanning had sold off a year or two before his mysterious and discreditable death in San Francisco--an incident less publicly humiliating to the family than the sale of the cellar.
~The Age of Innocence by Wharton, Edith

The hard-working man would come to the top, the wastrel sink to the bottom.
~Howards End by Forster, E. M.

QUOTE:

Experiences are savings which a miser puts aside. Wisdom is an inheritance which a wastrel cannot exhaust. ~Karl Kraus

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"wastrel." Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. 14 Jun. 2011. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/wastrel>.
"Experiences_are_savings_which_a_miser_puts_aside." Columbia World of Quotations. Columbia University Press, 1996. 14 Jun. 2011. <Dictionary.comhttp://quotes.dictionary.com/Experiences_are_savings_which_a_miser_puts_aside>.