Prodigal Son?
A prodigal son is not a prodigy that is a boy; that is a common mistake. A prodigal son is one that is wayward and lost or who has left home to go into the world and behaves badly when he does and then returns with regret and/or repentance.
Prodigal Son is defined by Cambridge dictionary as:
- "a man or boy who has left his family in order to do something that the family disapprove of and has now returned homefeeling sorry for what he has done"
Writingtips.com addresses the visual similarity between the words, but the differences between them as well:
- "Prodigal means “to spend wastefully.” So, what does that have to do with the biblical parable of the prodigal son, and what does being prodigal have to do with being a prodigy?
- As it happens, there’s no connection between the two words, though an assumption that they are synonymous may lead some people to believe, erroneously, that the phrase “prodigal son” refers to an impressive young man."
Unless there are objections, I'm going to update this page accordingly.