waste
Americanverb (used with object)
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wastes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
wasted,
past participle, past
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wasting
present participle
-
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
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to fail or neglect to use.
to waste an opportunity.
-
to destroy or consume gradually; wear away.
The waves waste the rock of the shore.
- Synonyms:
- erode
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to wear down or reduce in bodily substance, health, or strength; emaciate; enfeeble.
to be wasted by disease or hunger.
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to destroy, devastate, or ruin.
a country wasted by a long and futile war.
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Slang. to kill or murder.
verb (used without object)
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wastes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
wasted,
past participle, past
-
wasting
present participle
-
to be consumed, spent, or employed uselessly or without giving full value or being fully utilized or appreciated.
-
to become gradually consumed, used up, or worn away.
A candle wastes in burning.
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to become physically worn; lose flesh or strength; become emaciated or enfeebled.
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to diminish gradually; dwindle, as wealth, power, etc..
The might of England is wasting.
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to pass gradually, as time.
noun
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wastes
plural
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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
-
neglect, instead of use.
waste of opportunity.
-
gradual destruction, impairment, or decay.
the waste and repair of bodily tissue.
- Synonyms:
- consumption, emaciation, decline, diminution
-
devastation or ruin, as from war or fire.
- Synonyms:
- desolation, spoliation
-
a region or place devastated or ruined.
The forest fire left a blackened waste.
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anything unused, unproductive, or not properly utilized.
-
an uncultivated tract of land.
-
a wild region or tract of land; desolate country, desert, or the like.
-
an empty, desolate, or dreary tract or extent.
a waste of snow.
-
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.
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remnants, as from the working of cotton, used for wiping machinery, absorbing oil, etc.
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Physical Geography. material derived by mechanical and chemical disintegration of rock, as the detritus transported by streams, rivers, etc.
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garbage; refuse.
-
wastes, excrement.
adjective
-
not used or in use.
waste energy; waste talents.
-
(of land, regions, etc.) wild, desolate, barren, or uninhabited; desert.
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(of regions, towns, etc.) in a state of desolation and ruin, as from devastation or decay.
-
left over or superfluous.
to utilize waste products of manufacture.
-
having served or fulfilled a purpose; no longer of use.
-
rejected as useless or worthless; refuse.
to salvage waste products.
-
Physiology. pertaining to material unused by or unusable to the organism.
-
designed or used to receive, hold, or carry away excess, superfluous, used, or useless material (often in combination).
a waste pipe; waste container.
-
Obsolete. excessive; needless.
idioms
-
go to waste, to fail to be used or consumed; be wasted.
She hates to see good food go to waste.
-
lay waste, to devastate; destroy; ruin.
Forest fires lay waste thousands of acres yearly.
verb
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(tr) to use, consume, or expend thoughtlessly, carelessly, or to no avail
-
(tr) to fail to take advantage of
to waste an opportunity
-
to lose or cause to lose bodily strength, health, etc
-
to exhaust or become exhausted
-
(tr) to ravage
-
informal (tr) to murder or kill
I want that guy wasted by tomorrow
noun
-
the act of wasting or state of being wasted
-
a failure to take advantage of something
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anything unused or not used to full advantage
-
anything or anyone rejected as useless, worthless, or in excess of what is required
-
garbage, rubbish, or trash
-
a land or region that is devastated or ruined
-
a land or region that is wild or uncultivated
-
physiol
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the useless products of metabolism
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indigestible food residue
-
-
disintegrated rock material resulting from erosion
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law reduction in the value of an estate caused by act or neglect, esp by a life-tenant
adjective
-
rejected as useless, unwanted, or worthless
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produced in excess of what is required
-
not cultivated, inhabited, or productive
waste land
-
-
of or denoting the useless products of metabolism
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of or denoting indigestible food residue
-
-
destroyed, devastated, or ruined
-
designed to contain or convey waste products
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to devastate or destroy
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An unusable or unwanted substance or material, such as a waste product.
-
See also hazardous waste landfill
Synonym Usage
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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wastesimple
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wastessimple
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have wastedperfect
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has wastedperfect
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am wastingprogressive
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are wastingprogressive
-
is wastingprogressive
-
have been wastingperfect progressive
-
has been wastingperfect progressive
Past
-
wastedsimple
-
had wastedperfect
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was wastingprogressive
-
were wastingprogressive
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had been wastingperfect progressive
Future
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.”
Vocabulary lists containing waste
Common Five-letter Words for Wordle, List 4
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Natural Resources and the Environment - Introductory
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Earth Science - Middle School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
A former Monsanto worker who spent three years helping seal toxic waste underground said staff had "cheap" protective equipment and were not told what they were burying.
From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026
"I was a party planner for over 10 years and ... I was very sustainably focused. The final stumbling block for me was the balloon waste," she told AFP.
From Barron's ● Aug. 23, 2026
The manufacturing process can also be more efficient, potentially reducing both costs and material waste.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 23, 2026
What I really wanted to do was waste some time.
From Salon ● Aug. 23, 2026
Before her stretched a vast treeless waste, where heather and dwarf willow hugged the ground in a vain attempt to avoid the wind; where small peat-brown lakes shivered amid tossing marsh grass.
From "Wolf Brother" by Michelle Paver
It just wastes the strategy — and your money.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 14, 2026
His 13 league goals for Brighton last season came from 12.5 expected goals, a steady return that reflects a striker who finishes at expectation and rarely wastes chances.
From BBC ● Aug. 1, 2026
“We believe Meta’s strategy diffusion wastes shareholder capital,” she wrote.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026
“Remake” has a tragic tale to tell and director Ross McElwee wastes no time revealing its grieving heart.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 16, 2026
Our hardest task is teaching people to count on a future: to plant citrus trees, and compost their wastes for fertilizer.
From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
“She told me she had completely cut off her mom,” says Sherlock, 29, a certified public accountant in Lakeville, Minn. “And that she had wasted all of her 30s on a man.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 22, 2026
The early weeks of the season are crucial for Moyes and Everton to appease discontent supporters who felt last season's late collapse wasted an opportunity for European football.
From BBC ● Aug. 19, 2026
“They’re more aware of the non-alcoholic options, so it’s not so much the getting wasted, but it’s more just having fun, not necessarily boozy fun. They’re just doing it for themselves.”
From Salon ● Aug. 15, 2026
Google’s top researchers also wasted resources competing against each other.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 15, 2026
“And you, too, have failed. But, since your journey was the longer, I ask you which of us wasted more of his labor and pains?”
From "The Black Cauldron" by Lloyd Alexander
While he blogged about students wasting time watching Netflix, he found something else to binge that would end up being far more important to his career: effective altruism.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 26, 2026
Freeman, wasting no time, kicked off the conversation with: “I don’t want to pitch.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 25, 2026
He described a "worsening nutrition crisis" across the country, with more than half a million children admitted to hospital so far this year for high risk, moderate and severe wasting.
From Barron's ● Aug. 25, 2026
Researchers from the Netherlands and Spain say the bacterium could potentially be developed into a nutraceutical probiotic aimed at age-related muscle wasting.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 22, 2026
Mamá said buns were more expensive and they were the same exact thing, so she just didn’t see the point in wasting money on them.
From "Summer of the Mariposas" by Guadalupe García McCall
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
