Word of the Day Archive
Tuesday November 25, 2008
reprobate \REP-ruh-bayt\ , noun:
1. a very wicked, unprincipled person; scoundrel
adjective:
1. very wicked; unprincipled
verb:
1. to disapprove; condemn, censure
noun:
1. a person predestined to damnation, rejected by God
adjective:
1. rejected by God; damned
verb:
1. to reject from salvation; predestine to eternal punishment
A reprobate and a drunkard in his youth, Tenskwatawa underwent a spiritual rebirth in 1805.
-- Chief of a Vanishing Empire," review of Tecumseh: A Life, by John Sugden,, New York Times, April 18, 1994
Qusay loathed Uday's drunken rampages and reprobate lifestyle.
-- Romesh Ratnesar, And Then There Was One, Time, August 3, 1999
Music-loving Governor 0. K. Allen is said to have pardoned the old reprobate as much for Irene as anything.
-- Good Night, Irene, Time, August 13, 1946
Dave's father is a salty old reprobate who once ran off with the family doctor's wife and returned only to booze away his social security money at the local bars.
-- Life Is a Four-Letter Word, New York Times, January 12, 1954
by 1545, "rejected as worthless," from Late Latin reprobatus, pp. of reprobare "disapprove, reject, condemn," from Latin re- "opposite of, reversal of previous condition" + probare "prove to be worthy.". The noun is recorded from 1545, "one rejected by God." Sense of "abandoned or unprincipled person" is from 1592. Earliest form of the word in Engish was a verb, meaning "to disapprove" (1432).
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for reprobate
