squander
verbUK /ˈskwɒnd.ə/ · US /ˈskwɑn.dɚ/
Etymology Earliest uses (late 16th c.) "to spend recklessly or prodigiously", also "to scatter over a wide area". Of unknown origin. Perhaps a blend of scatter + wander. Compare Danish skvætte (rare)/skvatte (“to splash”) (nominalised: skvæt), Icelandic skvetta (“to squirt”), Swedish skvätta (“to splash”), Norwegian Bokmål skvette.
1
To waste, lavish, splurge; to spend lavishly or profusely; to dissipate.
- .
- 1886, Cora Pearl, Memoirs. "I have squandered money enormously.... I ought to have saved, but saving is not easy in such a whirl of excitement as that in which I have lived."
2 more examples
- 1746, Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanac Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of.
- As the game opened up, Bolton squandered a fine opportunity to equalise - Chris Eagles shooting straight at Szczesny - but then back came Arsenal.2011 September 24, David Ornstein, “Arsenal 3 - 0 Bolton”, in BBC Sport:
2
Obsolete To scatter; to disperse.
- […]our ſquander’d Troops he rallies:[…]1681, John Dryden, The Spanish Fryar: Or, the Double Discovery. […], London: […] Richard Tonson and Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, Act I, page 2:
3
Obsolete To wander at random; to scatter.
- […]The Wiſe-mans folly is anathomiz’d / Euen by ſquandring glances of the foole.c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene vii], page 193, column 1:
- Derived terms
- squanderable, squanderation, squanderer, Squandergate, squanderingly, squanderlust, squandermania, squandersome, unsquandered