1621, attributed toThomas Heywood or John Cooke,A Pleasant Conceited Comedy, wherein is Shewed, how a Man may Choose a Good Wife from a Bad. As It hath been Sundry Times Acted by the Earle of Worcesters Seruants[1], London: Printed [by Thomas Purfoot] for Mathew Law, and are to be sold at his shop inPaules church yard, neere vnto S. Augustines gate, at the signe of the Foxe,→OCLC:
Wel, go to wild oats,ſpend thrift prodigal, / Ile croſſe thy namequight from my reckning booke: / For theſe accounts, faith it ſhallſcath thee ſome what, / I will not ſay what, ſomewhat it ſhall be.
1817 (date written), [Jane Austen], chapter XII, inPersuasion; published inNorthanger Abbey: And Persuasion.[…], volume IV, London:John Murray,[…], 20 December 1817 (indicated as 1818),→OCLC,page299:
He was now esteemed quite worthy to address the daughter of a foolish,spendthrift baronet, who had not had principle or sense enough to maintain himself in the situation in which Providence had placed him, and who could give his daughter at present but a small part of the share of ten thousand pounds which must be hers hereafter.
Powerful feelings and generous designs are, alas! too like the inheritance of a miser in the hands of somespendthrift heir—lavished away on trifles in our early years, and needed, but not posessed, in our riper age.
2009, Grant Hayter-Menzies, “Preface”, inMrs. Ziegfield: The Public and Private Lives of Billie Burke, Jefferson, N.C.:McFarland & Company,→ISBN,page 3:
Billie Burke's career and life often twined together in this manner – so many of her roles called on her to play parts that were fragments of her real life: the sought-after young stage beauty, the wronged wife, thespendthrift matriarch of bankrupt wealth, the woman too old to be acting so young.
Rufus's stone lies in the outskirts of the forest, and in a few minutes they emerged upon the broad heath which bounds it, then like a sea of gold; for the furze was in the first glory of itsspendthrift wealth.
2004,Ethan Mordden, “The Great Tradition”, inThe Happiest Corpse I’ve Ever Seen: The Last Twenty-five Years of the Broadway Musical, New York, N.Y.:Palgrave Macmillan,→ISBN,page 6:
A high-powered entertainment that acceded to the spiraling capitalization costs of the big musical with a production ofspendthrift command,La Cage [aux Folles] came in at summer's end as a guaranteed hit.
This feels like a significant league title in more ways than one. It is now 14 years sinceRoman Abramovich emerged as anspendthrift presence in west London.
[T]hat vve vvould doe / VVe ſhould doe vvhen vve vvould: for this vvould changes, / And hath abatements and delayes as many, / As there are tongues, are hands, are accedents, / And then this ſhould is like aſpend thrifts ſigh, / That hurts by eaſing;[…]
1602,[Thomas Heywood],A Pleasant Conceited Comedie, wherein is Shewed How a Man may Chuse a Good Wife from a Bad.[…], London:[…] [Thomas Creede] for Mathew Lawe,[…],→OCLC; reprinted asHow a Man may Choose a Good Wife from a Bad (Old English Drama Students Facsimile;50), [London:s.n.],1912,→OCLC,signature C, recto:
VVell goe too vvild oates,ſpend thrift, prodigall, / Ile croſſe thy name quite from my reckoning booke: / For theſe accounts, faith it ſhall skathe thee ſomevvhat, / I vvill not ſay vvhat ſomevvhat it ſhall be.
1611,Randle Cotgrave, compiler, “Prodigue”, inA Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues, London:[…] Adam Islip,→OCLC, column 1:
Prodigue, & grand beuveur de vin n'a du ſien ne four, ne moulin: Pro.The drunkenſpendthrift vvaſts his beſt poſſeſſions.
1999, Warren G. Bovée, “Democratic Promise, Democratic Reality, and the Journalists”, inDiscovering Journalism (Contributions to the Study of Mass Media and Communications;no. 56), Westport, Conn.:Greenwood Press,→ISBN,→ISSN,pages79–80:
[T]emperate people choose neither total abstinence nor perpetual indulgence, but something in between; liberal people are neitherspendthrifts nor misers; the properly angry are neither apathetic nor short-tempered; and the strictly just person distributes to everyone what is his or her due, neither more nor less.
(figuratively) Anything that distributes its attributes profusely, withoutrestraint.
It was one of those bright days in spring, which are veryspendthrifts of sunshine, when the darkest alley in London wins a golden glimpse, and the eternal mist around St. Paul's turns to a glittering haze:...
spendthrift on Wikipedia.Wikipedia