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Today's Word "wastrel"

An idler or a loafer on

Published in Vocabulary

wastrel \WAY-struhl\ (noun) - 1 : A person who wastes, especially one who squanders money; a spendthrift. 2 : An idler; a loafer; a good-for-nothing.

"When I was a student in Lawrence, Kansas, there was a wastrel in the town who pretended to have been a pal of Ulysses Grant, the President. This wastrel was always hanging round the bar of the Eldridge House, or some other saloon, and if he had ever met you in any company always called you afterwards by your Christian name and proposed a drink." -- Frank Harris, 'My Life and Loves'

 

Wastrel is from waste + -rel (as in scoundrel).


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