profligacy 復習
Johnson is always after something in his quest for bulldog pride: he wants a new royal yacht, to signify … I don’t know, maybe how rich we must be as a nation, to spend a load of money on a family who are already richer than all of us combined. He wants commemorative stamps “to show we’ve got Brexit licked”; he wants planes, probably also trains, and automobiles: nothing is too frivolous and profligacy is half the charm of his wheezes, since spending money you don’t have is a sign of confidence, which is what proper British people have. (Skip the rest)
今回取り上げる語は、profligacy /ˈprɒflɪɡəsi/ です。記事にある “nothing is too frivolous and profligacy ...” は「つまらないものでも無駄なものでも無くて」と訳を推測することができます。以下で意味等を確認していきます。
まず意味を OED でみると、“Reckless extravagance or wastefulness in the use of resources” とあり、Collins Dictionary には “Profligacy is the spending of too much money or the using of too much of something” と定義されていました。
次に語源を ONLINE ETYMOLOGY DICTIONARY をみると、“1670s, from profligate + abstract noun suffix -cy” とあり、profligate を確認すると “1520s, "overthrown, routed" (now obsolete in this sense), from Latin profligatus "destroyed, ruined, corrupt, abandoned, dissolute," past participle of profligare "to cast down, defeat, ruin," from pro "down, forth" (see pro-) + fligere "to strike" (see afflict). Main modern meaning "recklessly extravagant" is 1779, via notion of "ruined by vice"” とありました。
以上のことから、profligacy は「浪費」という意味であることがわかりました。(OkaUchi)
