Wanton means cruel or destructive with no reason at all. Wanton cruelty, wanton destruction, wanton disregard.
The lack of reason is what the word condemns, which makes it stronger than deliberate: wanton damage is done for no gain whatever. It once meant undisciplined, and later unchaste, and that old sense aimed at women survives in older writing.
1adjectivewantonCruel or destructive with no reason at all.
“Someone had smashed every bench in the park in an act of wanton vandalism.”
wanton is a quality.
WANTon → he was WARNed and did it anyway
He was warned, and he broke it anyway, for no reason at all.
hooks ontowarn
Middle English wantowen means undisciplined — wan, meaning not or badly, plus a word meaning brought up.
Old English
togen
Middle English
wantoun
English, today
wanton
Built from
From Middle English wantoun, wantowen, wantoȝen, wantowe (“uneducated; unrestrained; licentious; sportive; playful”), from wan- (“not, un-, mis-”) + towen, itowen (“educated”) literally “towed; led; drawn”, from Old English togen, ġetogen, past participle of tēon (“to train, discipline”), equivalent to wan + towed.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA