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Waste   /weɪst/   Listen
Waste

noun
1.
Any materials unused and rejected as worthless or unwanted.  Synonyms: waste material, waste matter, waste product.  "Much of the waste material is carried off in the sewers"
2.
Useless or profitless activity; using or expending or consuming thoughtlessly or carelessly.  Synonyms: dissipation, wastefulness.  "Mindless dissipation of natural resources"
3.
The trait of wasting resources.  Synonyms: thriftlessness, wastefulness.  "The wastefulness of missed opportunities"
4.
An uninhabited wilderness that is worthless for cultivation.  Synonyms: barren, wasteland.  "The trackless wastes of the desert"
5.
(law) reduction in the value of an estate caused by act or neglect.  Synonym: permissive waste.
verb
(past & past part. wasted; pres. part. wasting)
1.
Spend thoughtlessly; throw away.  Synonyms: blow, squander.  "You squandered the opportunity to get and advanced degree"
2.
Use inefficiently or inappropriately.  "Waste a joke on an unappreciative audience"
3.
Get rid of.
4.
Run off as waste.  Synonym: run off.
5.
Get rid of (someone who may be a threat) by killing.  Synonyms: do in, knock off, liquidate, neutralise, neutralize.  "The double agent was neutralized"
6.
Spend extravagantly.  Synonyms: consume, squander, ware.
7.
Lose vigor, health, or flesh, as through grief.  Synonyms: languish, pine away.
8.
Cause to grow thin or weak.  Synonyms: emaciate, macerate.
9.
Cause extensive destruction or ruin utterly.  Synonyms: desolate, devastate, lay waste to, ravage, scourge.
10.
Become physically weaker.  Synonym: rot.
adjective
1.
Located in a dismal or remote area; desolate.  Synonyms: godforsaken, wild.  "A godforsaken wilderness crossroads" , "A wild stretch of land" , "Waste places"



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"Waste" Quotes from Famous Books



... waste of civil wars, their towns destroyed, Pales unhonoured, Ceres unemployed, Were all forgot; and one triumphant day Wiped all the tears of three campaigns away. Blood, rapines, massacres, were cheaply bought, So mighty recompense ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden

... ask the noble Lord to remember a case which happened during the time he held office, and if the Committee will allow me, for the sake of illustration, to refer to it, I do not think it will be any waste of time. Hon. Gentlemen will recollect that during the last year, my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Mr. J. B. Smith), who has paid great attention to Indian subjects, put a question to the noble Lord relating ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright

... into immortal verse, my son. You are the Lost Pleiad of Literature, that's what you are; and a mighty neat phrase that is. Oh, my Philly, why aren't you here, to take notice of my coruscations? Full many a squib is born to blaze unseen, and waste its fizzing—Hello, you, sir! Stop ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards

... wall of earth which divided the garden from the partially waste and partially cultivated ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... Resentful of her power, my spirit chafed Against its own deep pity, as though it were Raised ghost and she the witch had bid it haunt me. What's more I knew this slave by rights should glean And faggot drift-wood, not lounge there and waste My father's food dreaming his time away. For then as now the common-minded rich Grudged ease to those whose toil brought them in means For every waste of life. At length I spoke, Insulting both my inarticulate soul ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various


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