waste

verb

• 1 [with object] use or expend carelessly, extravagantly, or to no purpose:we can’t afford to waste electricity I don’t use the car, so why should I waste precious money on it?
• expend on an unappreciative recipient:her small talk was wasted on this guest
• fail to make full or good use of:we’re wasted in this job
• deliberately dispose of (surplus stock): 20% of stock will need to be wasted

• 2 [no object] (of a person or a part of the body) become progressively weaker and more emaciated:she was dying of AIDS, visibly wasting away (as adjective wasting)a wasting disease
• [with object] archaic make progressively weaker and more emaciated: these symptoms wasted the patients very much

• 3 [with object] North American informal kill or severely injure (someone): I saw them waste the guy I worked for

• 4 [with object] literary devastate or ruin (a place):he seized their cattle and wasted their country

• 5 [no object] literary (of time) pass away:the years were wasting

adjective

• 1(of a material, substance, or by-product) eliminated or discarded as no longer useful or required after the completion of a process:ensure that waste materials are disposed of responsibly plants produce oxygen as a waste product

• 2(of an area of land, typically an urban one) not used, cultivated, or built on:a patch of waste ground

noun

• 1an act or instance of using or expending something carelessly, extravagantly, or to no purpose:it’s a waste of time trying to argue with him [mass noun]:they had learned to avoid waste
• [mass noun] archaic the gradual loss or diminution of something:he was pale and weak from waste of blood

• 2 [mass noun] (also wastes) unwanted or unusable material, substances, or by-products:nuclear waste hazardous industrial wastes

• 3 (usually wastes) a large area of barren, typically uninhabited land:the icy wastes of the Antarctic

• 4 [mass noun] Law damage to an estate caused by an act or by neglect, especially by a life tenant.