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Prurient vs Profligate - What's the difference?

prurient | profligate |

As adjectives the difference between prurient and profligate

is that prurient is uneasy with desire; itching; especially, having a lascivious anxiety or propensity; lustful while profligate is (obsolete) overthrown, ruined.

As a noun profligate is

an abandoned person; one openly and shamelessly vicious; a dissolute person.

As a verb profligate is

(obsolete) to drive away; to overcome.

prurient

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Uneasy with desire; itching; especially, having a lascivious anxiety or propensity; lustful.
  • * 1823 , The London Literary Gazette and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, Etc , page 781,
  • We know that at that period certain indecencies in the dresses, even of those who were considered as the most refined and polished men of the age, were not only tolerated but ostentatiously displayed, and every sort of device that the most prurient mind could think of was had recourse to, to attract attention or excite a smile.
  • * 1995 , Brian Parkinson, Ideas and Realities of Emotion , page 124,
  • For example, some of the more prudish senders may have averted their attention from the sexual pictures while other more prurient viewers may have intensified their gaze.
  • * 2010 , Stephen Sartarelli (translator), Love and the Erotic in Art'', (2008, Stefano Zuffi, ''Amore ed erotismo ), John Paul Getty Trust, US, page 7,
  • It must be removed at once, lest it disturb the young and arouse in adults the most prurient thoughts.
  • Arousing or appealing to sexual desire.
  • * 1825 , The Literary Chronicle for the Year 1825 , London, page 156,
  • nor is it more prurient or lascivious than many productions to be found in a circulating library.
  • * 2005 , Donald Gilbert-Santamaría, Writers on the Market: Consuming Literature in Early Seventeenth-century Spain , page 130,
  • Much of my discussion in the previous two chapters has focused on the dichotomy in Alemán's novel between the author's stated interest in moral didacticism and the more prurient appeal of the novel's representations of material privation and violent spectacle.
  • * 2008 , Marcel Danesi, Popular Culture: Introductory Perspectives , page 204,
  • But in contemporary consumerist societies, when the kids are safely in bed, television programs allow viewers to indulge their more prurient interests.
  • Curious, especially inappropriately so.
  • Synonyms

    * (uneasy with desire) lustful * (sexually arousing or appealing) titillating

    Derived terms

    * prurient interest

    profligate

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • (obsolete) Overthrown, ruined.
  • * Hudibras
  • The foe is profligate , and run.
  • Inclined to waste resources or behave extravagantly.
  • * 2013 , Ben Smith, "[http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24503988]", BBC Sport , 19 October 2013:
  • Jay Rodriguez headed over and Dani Osvaldo might have done better with only David De Gea to beat and, as Southampton bordered on the profligate , United were far more ruthless.
  • Immoral; abandoned to vice.
  • * Roscommon
  • a race more profligate than we
  • * Dryden
  • Made prostitute and profligate muse.

    Synonyms

    * (inclined to waste resources or behave extravagantly) extravagant, wasteful, prodigal * immoral, licentious * See also

    Derived terms

    * profligateness

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An abandoned person; one openly and shamelessly vicious; a dissolute person.
  • An overly wasteful or extravagant individual.
  • Synonyms

    * (overly wasteful or extravagant individual) wastrel * See also and

    Verb

    (profligat)
  • (obsolete) To drive away; to overcome.
  • * 1840 , Alexander Walker, Woman Physiologically Considered as to Mind, Morals, Marriage, Matrimonial Slavery, Infidelity and Divorce , page 157:
  • Such a stipulation would remove one powerful temptation to profligate pennyless seducers, of whom there are too many prowling in the higher circles ;

    Synonyms

    * overcome