reprobate

comparative more reprobate · superlative most reprobate

1. rareRejected; cast off as worthless.

   Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord hath rejected them.

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Jeremiah 6:30

   Synonyms: castoff, discarded, forcasten

2. Rejected by God; damned, sinful.

   Synonyms: ever-damned, goddamned, hellbound, damned, deityforsaken, deuced, ever-damned, goddamned

3. Immoral, having no religious or principled character.

   The reprobate criminal sneered at me.

   1 more example

   And strength, and art, are easily outdone / By spirits reprobate.

   1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC

   Synonyms: dissolute, licentious, profligate, aberrant, corrupt, corrupted, depraved, lost

plural reprobates

1. One rejected by God; a sinful person.

   1 more example

   And the solitarines of man, which God had namely and principally orderd to prevent by mariage, hath no remedy, but lies under a worse condition then the loneliest single life; for in single life the absence and remotenes of a helper might inure him to expect his own comforts out of himselfe, or to seek with hope; but here the continuall sight of his deluded thoughts without cure, must needs be to him, if especially his complexion incline him to melancholy, a daily trouble and paine of losse in som degree like that which Reprobats feel.

   1643, John Milton, Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce

   Synonyms: icchantika[Buddhism]]>, anathema[Christianity]]>

2. A person with low morals or principles.

   I acknowledge myself for a reprobate, a villain, a traitor to the king.

   c. 1603, Walter Raleigh, Apology for the Voyage to Guiana

   4 more examples

   [T]he young sinner took leave of Pen, and the club of the elder criminals, and sauntered into Blacquiere’s, an adjacent establishment, frequented by reprobates of his own age.

   1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 37, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC

   "Good morning, Mrs. Denny," he said. "Wherefore this worried look on your face? Has that reprobate James been misbehaving himself?"

   1920, Herman Cyril McNeile, chapter 1, in Bulldog Drummond

   West of here, it ascends to its viaduct where, 20 feet above the ground, the Westway seeks to emulate it; two scruffy reprobates shouldering their way through a not very pretty streetscape; the one a railway built by corporate buccaneers, the other a road constructed as part of a discredited plan to girdle London with motorways.

   2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 50, on the Hammersmith & City line

   Principal Ferguson crossed his arms over his chest. “Nonsense. You two reprobates are responsible for sullying my reputation.” “No, we're not,” I said. “We don't even know what reprobates and sullying mean!” said Michael.

   2017, James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein, Pottymouth and Stoopid, page 200

present singular third person reprobates · participle present reprobating · participle past reprobated · past reprobated

1. To have strong disapproval of something; to reprove; to condemn.

   Lord Rotheles allowed it was a very sufficient cause for returning soon, and reprobated all delays of letters, though he confessed to being a very idle correspondent;...

   1842, [anonymous collaborator of Letitia Elizabeth Landon], chapter XLV, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 274

2. Of God: to abandon or reject, to deny eternal bliss.
3. To refuse, set aside.