Waste
[weɪst] or [west]
Definition
(noun.) useless or profitless activity; using or expending or consuming thoughtlessly or carelessly; 'if the effort brings no compensating gain it is a waste'; 'mindless dissipation of natural resources'.
(noun.) (law) reduction in the value of an estate caused by act or neglect.
(noun.) any materials unused and rejected as worthless or unwanted; 'they collect the waste once a week'; 'much of the waste material is carried off in the sewers'.
(verb.) become physically weaker; 'Political prisoners are wasting away in many prisons all over the world'.
(verb.) cause to grow thin or weak; 'The treatment emaciated him'.
(verb.) use inefficiently or inappropriately; 'waste heat'; 'waste a joke on an unappreciative audience'.
(verb.) run off as waste; 'The water wastes back into the ocean'.
(verb.) get rid of; 'We waste the dirty water by channeling it into the sewer'.
(verb.) spend thoughtlessly; throw away; 'He wasted his inheritance on his insincere friends'; 'You squandered the opportunity to get and advanced degree'.
Inputed by Leonard--From WordNet
Definition
(a.) Desolate; devastated; stripped; bare; hence, dreary; dismal; gloomy; cheerless.
(a.) Lying unused; unproductive; worthless; valueless; refuse; rejected; as, waste land; waste paper.
(a.) Lost for want of occupiers or use; superfluous.
(a.) To bring to ruin; to devastate; to desolate; to destroy.
(a.) To wear away by degrees; to impair gradually; to diminish by constant loss; to use up; to consume; to spend; to wear out.
(a.) To spend unnecessarily or carelessly; to employ prodigally; to expend without valuable result; to apply to useless purposes; to lavish vainly; to squander; to cause to be lost; to destroy by scattering or injury.
(a.) To damage, impair, or injure, as an estate, voluntarily, or by suffering the buildings, fences, etc., to go to decay.
(v. i.) To be diminished; to lose bulk, substance, strength, value, or the like, gradually; to be consumed; to dwindle; to grow less.
(v. i.) To procure or sustain a reduction of flesh; -- said of a jockey in preparation for a race, etc.
(v.) The act of wasting, or the state of being wasted; a squandering; needless destruction; useless consumption or expenditure; devastation; loss without equivalent gain; gradual loss or decrease, by use, wear, or decay; as, a waste of property, time, labor, words, etc.
(v.) That which is wasted or desolate; a devastated, uncultivated, or wild country; a deserted region; an unoccupied or unemployed space; a dreary void; a desert; a wilderness.
(v.) That which is of no value; worthless remnants; refuse. Specifically: Remnants of cops, or other refuse resulting from the working of cotton, wool, hemp, and the like, used for wiping machinery, absorbing oil in the axle boxes of railway cars, etc.
(v.) Spoil, destruction, or injury, done to houses, woods, fences, lands, etc., by a tenant for life or for years, to the prejudice of the heir, or of him in reversion or remainder.
(v.) Old or abandoned workings, whether left as vacant space or filled with refuse.
Editor: Miriam
Synonyms and Synonymous
v. a. [1]. Decrease, diminish, wear, corrode, use up, prey upon, wear away.[2]. Consume (foolishly), spend, expend, squander, dissipate, lose, misspend, misuse, fool away, fritter away, muddle away.[3]. Destroy, desolate, ravage, pillage, plunder, strip, ruin, spoil, devastate, sack, devour.
v. n. [1]. Dwindle, wither, pine, perish, decay, be diminished, waste away.[2]. Swale, melt (as a candle), sweal, consume.
a. [1]. Destroyed, ruined, ravaged, spoiled, devastated, desolated.[2]. Wild, uncultivated, bare, untitled.[3]. Worthless, refuse.
n. [1]. Consumption, loss, diminution, decrement, expenditure, wasting, dissipation.[2]. Squandering, wanton destruction, loss.[3]. Devastation, ravage, ruin, rapine, destruction, desolation, pillage, havoc.[4]. Refuse, worthless matter.[5]. Wild, wilderness, desert, solitude, lonely place, deserted region.
Typed by Humphrey
Synonyms and Antonyms
SYN:Ruin, destroy, devastate, impair, consume, squander, dissipate, throw_away,diminish, impair, lavish, desolate, pine, decay, attenuate, dwindle, shrivel,wither, wane
ANT:Restore, repair, conserve, preserve, perpetuate, protect, husband, economize,utilize, hoard, treasure, accumulate, enrich, flourish, luxuriate, multiply,augment, develop
Checker: Steve
Definition
adj. empty desert: desolate: useless vain: stripped: lying unused: unproductive.—v.t. to lay waste or make desolate: to destroy: to wear out gradually: to squander: to diminish: to impair.—v.i. to be diminished: to dwindle: to be consumed.—n. act of wasting: useless expenditure: superfluous material stuff left over: loss: destruction: that which is wasted or waste: uncultivated country: desert: refuse as of coal &c.: decay decline: (law) natural but permanent injury to the inheritance.—ns. Wās′tage loss by use natural decay; Waste′-bas′ket Waste′paper-bas′ket a basket for holding useless scraps of paper; Waste′-book a book in which merchants make entries of transactions in order as they occur and for a temporary purpose.—adj. Waste′ful full of waste: destructive: lavish: (Spens.) desolate.—adv. Waste′fully.—ns. Waste′fulness; Waste′-gate a gate for discharging surplus water from a dam &c.; Wās′ten (Spens.) a desert; Waste′ness (B.) devastation; Waste′-pipe a pipe for carrying off waste or surplus water; Wās′ter one who or that which wastes: a spendthrift: a destroyer: an article spoilt in the making.—adj. Wās′ting devastating: enfeebling—(Wasting investments stocks redeemable on a certain date at a fixed price for which a premium above the redemption price is paid).—ns. Wās′ting devastation; Wās′trel refuse: anything neglected a neglected child: (dial.) a profligate; Wās′try (Scot.) prodigality.—adj. improvident.—Waste lands uncultivated and unprofitable tracts in populous and cultivated countries; Waste time to employ time unprofitably or not at all.—Run to waste to become incapable or useless.—Utilisation of waste products the putting to other use of such material as is rendered either wholly or partially useless in the manufacture of articles and products—e.g. waste-silk is now a valuable raw material for a large spun-silk industry.
Typed by Doreen
Unserious Contents or Definition
To dream of wandering through waste places, foreshadows doubt and failure, where promise of success was bright before you. To dream of wasting your fortune, denotes you will be unpleasantly encumbered with domestic cares.
Checked by Joy
Examples
- Sell her her waste, please, and give her good measure if you can make up your mind to do the liberal thing for once. Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- Here is a waste of land that might afford subsistence for so many of the human species. Benjamin Franklin. Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin.
- In waste and uninclosed lands, any person who discovers a tin mine may mark out its limits to a certain extent, which is called bounding a mine. Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
- Here you have been abroad nearly six months, and done nothing but waste time and money and disappoint your friends. Louisa May Alcott. Little Women.
- If she is, it's because you wouldn't waste your time on an old hulk like me. Edith Wharton. The House of Mirth.
- Clear waste, sir, of a thousand dollars, just for want of management,--there's where 't is. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle Tom's Cabin.
- If a gust of wind swept the waste, I looked up, fearing it was the rush of a bull; if a plover whistled, I imagined it a man. Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre.
- If he has any expectations it is due to the fact that I have never wasted money, and I do not propose to begin to do so now. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
- Pleasure not known beforehand is half wasted; to anticipate it is to double it. Thomas Hardy. The Return of the Native.
- Her half-brother had now ample means again, but what with debts and what with new madness wasted them most fearfully again. Charles Dickens. Great Expectations.
- The man was beset by friends who told him he was mad to continue the chase, and that his undoubted talents in other lines were being wasted. Rupert S. Holland. Historic Inventions.
- And when Miss Caroline entered she was encountered in the middle of the chamber by a tall, thin, wasted figure, who took both her hands. Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
- Look upon this damosel; note her wasted form, her halting step, her bloomless cheeks where youth should blush and happiness exult in smiles! Mark Twain. The Innocents Abroad.
- Yet in some ways I feel that yesterday has not been wasted. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.
- Devilish cold,' he added pettishly, 'standing at that door, wasting one's time with such seedy vagabonds! Charles Dickens. The Pickwick Papers.
- Not once; but I assure you she is wasting. Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
- Her thinness seemed to be the effect of some wasting fire within her, which found a vent in her gaunt eyes. Charles Dickens. David Copperfield.
- You had better return to your partner and enjoy her smiles, for you are wasting your time with me. Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice.
- The atmosphere of those Fairy palaces was like the breath of the simoom: and their inhabitants, wasting with heat, toiled languidly in the desert. Charles Dickens. Hard Times.
- That's the worst of it--people say she isn't wasting her time! Edith Wharton. The House of Mirth.
- Our chance of catching the thieves may depend on our not wasting one unnecessary minute. Wilkie Collins. The Moonstone.
- The canal extends nearly due south to Suez on the Red Sea, a distance of about 100 miles, through barren wastes of sand and an occasional lake. Edward W. Byrn. The Progress of Invention in the Nineteenth Century.
- He that wastes idly a groat's worth of his time per day, one day with another, wastes the privilege of using one hundred pounds each day. Benjamin Franklin. Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin.
- And a society like ours wastes such good material in producing its little patch of purple! Edith Wharton. The House of Mirth.
- Rosamond had that victorious obstinacy which never wastes its energy in impetuous resistance. George Eliot. Middlemarch.
- His emotions responded to the glories of tropica l vegetation in the Brazilian forests, and to the sublimity of Patagonian wastes and the forest-cl ad hills of Tierra del Fuego. Walter Libby. An Introduction to the History of Science.
- Further, water assists in the removal of the daily bodily wastes, and thus rids the system of foul and poisonous substances. Bertha M. Clark. General Science.
- But while the careless disposal of wastes may not spoil the drinking water (in the well to be described), other laws of health demand a thoughtful disposal of wastes. Bertha M. Clark. General Science.
Edited by Angus