reprobate

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The Word of the Day for August 6 is: 

reprobate   \REP-ruh-bayt\   noun
     1 : a person foreordained to damnation
    *2 : a depraved person : scoundrel

Example sentence:
     "He was just an old reprobate who lived poor and died broke...." (Richard 
Peck, _A Long Way from Chicago_)

Did you know?
     These days, calling Uncle Fred a "reprobate" is hardly a condemnation to 
hellfire and brimstone, but the original reprobates of the 16th century were 
hardened sinners who had fallen from God's grace. By the 19th century, 
"reprobate" had acquired the milder, but still utterly condemnatory, sense of 
"a depraved person." Gradually, though, the criticism implied by "reprobate" 
became touched with tolerance and even a bit of humor. It is now most likely to 
be used as it was in this August 1995 _New Yorker_ magazine article about the 
death of musician Jerry Garcia: "It was suddenly obvious that Garcia had 
become, against all odds, an American icon: by Thursday morning, the avuncular 
old reprobate had smuggled his way onto the front pages of newspapers around 
the world."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.