Prodigal Son Definition & Meaning

American

Cultural

Etymology

Examples

Synonyms prodigal son American

noun

1. a figure in a parable of Jesus (Luke 15:11–32); a wayward son who squanders his inheritance but returns home to find that his father forgives him.

Prodigal Son Cultural

1. A character in a parable Jesus told to illustrate how generous God is in forgiving sinners who repent. The Prodigal Son was a young man who asked his father for his inheritance and then left home for “a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.” As his money ran out, a famine occurred, and he went to work tending pigs, but even then he could not get enough to eat. He returned home, knowing that he had given up his right to be treated as his father's son, but hoping that his father would accept him as a hired servant on the farm. Seeing the Prodigal Son coming from a distance, the father rejoiced and ordered the fatted calf to be slaughtered for a feast to celebrate the son's return. The Prodigal Son's elder brother returned from the fields while the feast was going on and was angry. He complained that he had never been treated to such a feast, though he had remained and worked diligently for his father while the Prodigal Son was away. The father reassured him, saying that the elder son would still get his inheritance, but it was right to celebrate the return of the Prodigal Son: “For this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.”

Etymology

Origin of prodigal son

First recorded in 1545–55

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

When the Prodigal Son’s older brother is bothered about the feast, his father tells him to rejoice in his brother’s return.

From The Wall Street Journal

It was the most divisive appointment, the return of the prodigal son for a few or, as some other Celtic fans would have put it, the return of the shameless one, who left them in the lurch for Leicester.

From BBC

Before we meet any characters in “The Family Stone,” Thomas Bezucha’s 2005 holiday dramedy about a close-knit extended family meeting their prodigal son’s uptight new girlfriend for the first time, a cellphone rings.

From Salon

In a troubled time before their rift, my husband, by his own account, had been financially irresponsible, reckless, a prodigal son.

From The Wall Street Journal

Wayne Rooney was greeted like the prodigal son, remembered as the 16-year-old who electrified Goodison Park with that famous goal against Arsenal rather than the local boy who left his beloved club to seek success and ending up as Manchester United's all-time record goalscorer.

From BBC

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.