One way to hold prodigal: a pair of hands pushing things out and away, and never once stopping to count what is left. Watch the money go and the word sounds like a warning. Watch the same hands hand out praise, or a tree hand out fruit, and nothing is wrong at all — the pushing-out has simply landed on someone who is glad to catch it. The word itself does not choose between those two. The situation around it does.
From the word’s history
Prodigal goes back through Late Latin prodigalis to Latin prodigus 'wasteful, lavish', from prodigo 'to drive forth, squander' — prod- (forward) plus ago (drive). The driving-forward is still the whole picture. The famous 'son who leaves and returns' meaning is a separate route: it comes by allusion to the parable in Luke 15:11-32.
prodigal 經由晚期拉丁文 prōdigālis 回到拉丁文 prōdigus（揮霍的、豐盛的），再往上是 prōdigō「往前趕出去」——prōd-（向前）加 agō（趕）。那個「往外趕」到今天還是整個字的畫面。至於有名的「離家又回頭的兒子」那個意思，走的是另一條路：它來自《路加福音》15:11–32 的典故。
Wiktionary entry for prodigal (adj), source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:608844297 — Latin etymology plus the explicit note that the abandonment/return senses are by allusion to Luke 15:11-32.
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