wastrel
/ˈweɪstr(ə)l
/noun
1 literary A wasteful or good-for-nothing person: I have no intention of seeing my dues gambled away by your wastrel of a son...
- This is a horribly patronising movie that makes Dublin in 1967 look like a theme-park of amiable drunken wastrels and boozy squawking women in headscarves and ankle socks.
- In those dark days fathers surfaced in politics either as incipient child-abusers, or alimony-evading wastrels.
- These children, they said, were destined to become wastrels, neurotic misfits or criminals.
Synonyms
spendthrift, prodigal, profligate, squanderer
informal big spender
idler, loafer, good-for-nothing, drone, ne'er-do-well, do-nothing, layabout, slob, lounger, shirker, sluggard, slug, laggard, slugabed
informal waster, loser, slacker, lazybones
British informal skiver
2 archaic A waif; a neglected child.
Origin
Late 16th century (denoting a strip of waste land): from the verb waste + -rel.