waste

American  

[wayst] / weɪst /

verb (used with object)

• wastes,
  present (3rd person singular)
• wasted,
  past participle,  past
• wasting
  present participle

1. to consume, spend, or employ uselessly or without adequate return; use to no avail or profit; squander.

   to waste money; to waste words.

   Synonyms:

   expend, fritter away, dissipate, misspend

   Antonyms:

   save

2. to fail or neglect to use.

   to waste an opportunity.

3. to destroy or consume gradually; wear away.

   The waves waste the rock of the shore.

   Synonyms:

   erode

4. to wear down or reduce in bodily substance, health, or strength; emaciate; enfeeble.

   to be wasted by disease or hunger.

5. to destroy, devastate, or ruin.

   a country wasted by a long and futile war.

   Synonyms:

   despoil, spoil, sack, plunder, pillage, ravage

6. Slang. to kill or murder.

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verb (used without object)

• wastes,
  present (3rd person singular)
• wasted,
  past participle,  past
• wasting
  present participle

1. to be consumed, spent, or employed uselessly or without giving full value or being fully utilized or appreciated.

2. to become gradually consumed, used up, or worn away.

   A candle wastes in burning.

3. to become physically worn; lose flesh or strength; become emaciated or enfeebled.

4. to diminish gradually; dwindle, as wealth, power, etc..

   The might of England is wasting.

   Synonyms:

   decay, wane, ebb, decline

5. to pass gradually, as time.

noun

• wastes
  plural

1. useless consumption or expenditure; use without adequate return; an act or instance of wasting.

   The project was a waste of material, money, time, and energy.

   Synonyms:

   dissipation

2. neglect, instead of use.

   waste of opportunity.

3. gradual destruction, impairment, or decay.

   the waste and repair of bodily tissue.

   Synonyms:

   consumption, emaciation, decline, diminution

4. devastation or ruin, as from war or fire.

   Synonyms:

   desolation, spoliation

5. a region or place devastated or ruined.

   The forest fire left a blackened waste.

6. anything unused, unproductive, or not properly utilized.

7. an uncultivated tract of land.

8. a wild region or tract of land; desolate country, desert, or the like.

9. an empty, desolate, or dreary tract or extent.

   a waste of snow.

10. anything left over or superfluous, as excess material or by-products, not of use for the work in hand.

    a fortune made in salvaging factory wastes.

11. remnants, as from the working of cotton, used for wiping machinery, absorbing oil, etc.

12. Physical Geography. material derived by mechanical and chemical disintegration of rock, as the detritus transported by streams, rivers, etc.

13. garbage; refuse.

    Synonyms:

    trash, rubbish

14. wastes, excrement.

adjective

1. not used or in use.

   waste energy; waste talents.

2. (of land, regions, etc.) wild, desolate, barren, or uninhabited; desert.

3. (of regions, towns, etc.) in a state of desolation and ruin, as from devastation or decay.

4. left over or superfluous.

   to utilize waste products of manufacture.

   Synonyms:

   extra, useless, unused

5. having served or fulfilled a purpose; no longer of use.

6. rejected as useless or worthless; refuse.

   to salvage waste products.

7. Physiology. pertaining to material unused by or unusable to the organism.

8. designed or used to receive, hold, or carry away excess, superfluous, used, or useless material (often in combination).

   a waste pipe; waste container.

9. Obsolete. excessive; needless.

idioms

1. go to waste, to fail to be used or consumed; be wasted.

   She hates to see good food go to waste.

2. lay waste, to devastate; destroy; ruin.

   Forest fires lay waste thousands of acres yearly.

waste British  

/ weɪst /

verb

1. (tr) to use, consume, or expend thoughtlessly, carelessly, or to no avail

2. (tr) to fail to take advantage of

   to waste an opportunity

3. to lose or cause to lose bodily strength, health, etc

4. to exhaust or become exhausted

5. (tr) to ravage

6. informal (tr) to murder or kill

   I want that guy wasted by tomorrow

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noun

1. the act of wasting or state of being wasted

2. a failure to take advantage of something

3. anything unused or not used to full advantage

4. anything or anyone rejected as useless, worthless, or in excess of what is required

5. garbage, rubbish, or trash

6. a land or region that is devastated or ruined

7. a land or region that is wild or uncultivated

8. physiol

   1. the useless products of metabolism

   2. indigestible food residue

9. disintegrated rock material resulting from erosion

10. law reduction in the value of an estate caused by act or neglect, esp by a life-tenant

adjective

1. rejected as useless, unwanted, or worthless

2. produced in excess of what is required

3. not cultivated, inhabited, or productive

   waste land

4. 1. of or denoting the useless products of metabolism

   2. of or denoting indigestible food residue

5. destroyed, devastated, or ruined

6. designed to contain or convey waste products

7. to devastate or destroy

waste Scientific  

/ wāst /

1. An unusable or unwanted substance or material, such as a waste product.

2. See also hazardous waste landfill

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1. To lose or cause to lose energy, strength, weight, or vigor, as by the progressive effects of a disease such as metastatic cancer.

waste More Idioms  

More idioms and phrases containing waste

• go to waste
• haste makes waste
• lay waste

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Synonym Usage

See desert ¹. See ravage.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• outwaste
  verb (used with object)
• unwastable
  adjective
• wastable
  adjective
• wasteless
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• wastes
  plural

Participles

• wasting
  present
• wasted
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• waste
  simple
• wastes
  simple
• have wasted
  perfect
• has wasted
  perfect
• am wasting
  progressive
• are wasting
  progressive
• is wasting
  progressive
• have been wasting
  perfect progressive
• has been wasting
  perfect progressive

Past

• wasted
  simple
• had wasted
  perfect
• was wasting
  progressive
• were wasting
  progressive
• had been wasting
  perfect progressive

Future

• will waste
  simple
• will have wasted
  perfect
• will be wasting
  progressive
• will have been wasting
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of waste

First recorded in 1150–1200; 1960–65 waste for def. 6; (for the adjective) Middle English, from Old North French wast (compare Old French g(u)ast ), from Latin vāstus “desolate, destroyed, empty, immense”; verb and noun derivative of the adjective; cf. vast ( def. )

Explanation

If waste is useless, then to waste is to fritter away. Don't waste time putting your waste paper in the waste basket, just chuck it in the recycling bin. As a noun, waste, meaning “desolate regions” stems from the Old English westen, meaning “a desert, wilderness.” Later, it came to imply a “useless activity,” and even later than that, “refuse matter,” or “trash.” As a verb, waste “devastate, ruin,” comes from the Latin vastare, “to lay waste.” It later adopted the sense of “spend or consume uselessly.” It can also mean “to kill.” The poet E. E. Cummings said, “The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.”

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

waste wastes wasted wasting

Kit can remain in warehouses or athletes' garages without entering a waste stream where it can be counted.

From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2026

"That does mean that we also end up with a lot of waste, a lot of things where you're like, 'this is basically brand new, but it's not quite good enough to maybe win'."

From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2026

"This discovery helps explain how the eye flushes this waste and promises to transform how we think about and treat a range of eye conditions."

From Science Daily ● Oct. 11, 2026

The culvert once drained waste water from King James VI Hospital, which was built around 1749-1750 and was converted into flats in the 1970s.

From BBC ● Oct. 11, 2026

“Do not waste your energy hunting me!” hollered the robot.

From "The Wild Robot Protects" by Peter Brown

But the Independent was cooler on the launch episode as a whole, saying the show "wastes Nigella's prodigious charms and misses chance for a true revamp".

From BBC ● Sep. 23, 2026

It just wastes the strategy — and your money.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 14, 2026

In 1958, working-class voters and Democrats were within 5 points of each other on whether government wastes a lot of tax money.

From Salon ● Aug. 9, 2026

I still think the film largely wastes its strong cast, but I framed it badly.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 31, 2026

“Eh! My son wastes money on these expensive things,” she said.

From "Half of a Yellow Sun" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

He worked out that "we spent 14 to 15 hours of that holiday on a coach trip, plus time wasted waiting for coaches".

From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2026

Pages had wasted the Dodgers’ second challenge on a clear strike moments earlier.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2026

"I think she knows she wasted her life, and I think she knows she could have done good in her life but she didn't."

From BBC ● Oct. 3, 2026

This is the industry whose most famous adage is “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, and the trouble is I don’t know which half.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 30, 2026

Anya decided she had wasted enough time on a creature that might not even be real.

From Anya and the Dragon by Sofiya Pasternack

During that time Kevin Pietersen, now an England mentor, said Banton "has all the talent but, at the moment, he is wasting it".

From BBC ● Sep. 27, 2026

Without collecting race and ethnicity data in the census, these estimates could not be produced, needlessly wasting resources and endangering lives.

From Slate ● Sep. 17, 2026

Executives agreed that AI is delivering outsize value in some cases, but they found that in the majority of cases, it’s wasting more money than it’s worth.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 16, 2026

Financial planners will typically advise customers to keep their finances simple, which would usually include avoiding wasting time on gimmicks.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 16, 2026

And wasting food is the worst thing you can do.

From "The Wrong Way Home" by Kate O’Shaughnessy

Related Words

• blow
• consume
• deplete
• dissipate
• divert
• drain
• exhaust
• lavish
• lose
• misuse
• squander
• undermine