squander

verb

Etymology: Earliest uses (late 16th c.) "to spend recklessly or prodigiously", also "to scatter over a wide area". Of unknown origin. Perhaps a blend of scatter + wander. Compare Danish skvætte (rare)/skvatte (“to splash”) (nominalised: skvæt), Icelandic skvetta (“to squirt”), Swedish skvätta (“to splash”), Norwegian Bokmål skvette.

1. To waste, lavish, splurge; to spend lavishly or profusely; to dissipate.

   “.”

   “1886, Cora Pearl, Memoirs. "I have squandered money enormously.... I ought to have saved, but saving is not easy in such a whirl of excitement as that in which I have lived."”

2. To scatter; to disperse.

   “[…]our ſquander’d Troops he rallies:[…]”

3. To wander at random; to scatter.

   “[…]The Wiſe-mans folly is anathomiz’d / Euen by ſquandring glances of the foole.”