What does the word prodigality mean? (From Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby)
Wastefulness or extreme lavishness.
The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun, and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music, and the opera of voices pitches a key higher. Laughter is easier minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word.
From Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.