How to Use wastrel in a Sentence
wastrel
noun-
First, the history plays, in their arc and purpose, trace the development of the wastrel prince into the hero king.
—New York Times, 12 May 2017
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Set in a town called Bedford and peopled by the kind of deliciously self-absorbed upper-class wastrels...
—John Anderson, WSJ, 5 May 2020
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McCoy is certain that the victims’ deaths can be traced to the door of the richest family in Glasgow—whose ice-cold patriarch and his wastrel son are rumored to host orgies laced with drugs and sadism.
—Tom Nolan, WSJ, 4 May 2018
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When all is said and done, Biden may get enough spending to allow Republicans to attack him as a wastrel and not enough spending to excite his own partisans.
—Rich Lowry, National Review, 10 Sep. 2021
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The novel doesn’t quite persuade us as to why this noble character would have any interest at all in this useless, self-defeating wastrel.
—Hermione Lee, The New York Review of Books, 6 Oct. 2020
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The representatives of the most obviously self-indulgent wastrel ever to waddle through the White House?
—Charles P. Pierce, Esquire, 7 Feb. 2018
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Eddie is a wastrel, but one who does his own grocery-shopping, fervently embraces his frumpy wife, and enthuses over the Boston Bruins’ Bobby Orr.
—Peter Tonguette, WSJ, 31 July 2017
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The author’s wastrel sons, Denis and Adrian, depended on income from the detective to finance addictions to fast cars and big-game hunting, which at times threatened to bankrupt the Estate.
—Michael Saler, WSJ, 4 Aug. 2017
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The story of Fitzgerald as a wastrel and a victim of his own indiscipline is attractive but exaggerated.
—Sam Tanenhaus, New Republic, 31 May 2017
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Beneath the retro kitsch of hairspray, lycra, and Jane Fonda workouts is a winning examination of friendship and ambition, built around a cast of misfit performers and their brash wastrel of a director (Marc Maron).
—Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic, 11 Dec. 2017
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Was Johnny Depp an innocent fleeced at the hands of Hollywood hucksters or a scheming artful dodger attempting to sue his way out of his wastrel lifestyle and outrageous spending and any remaining debt to his former business managers?
—Mark Seal, Vanities, 11 July 2017
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'wastrel.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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