Definition of "prodigality" [prod•i•gal•i•ty]

• Extravagant wastefulness. (noun)
• Profuse generosity. (noun)
• Extreme abundance; lavishness. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Has she not bestowed on him every gift in prodigality?"
• "83 But this vain prodigality, which the prudence of Diocletian might justly despise, was enjoyed with surprise and transport by the Roman people."
• "She there appears surrounded by the luxuriance of vegetable life: she pours forth her bounty with a profusion which the partizans of utility would call prodigality, and covers the earth with a splendour of beauty, which serves no other purpose than to minister to the delight of human existence."