waste
noun · verb · adjective
Simple meaning
Excess of material, useless by-products, or damaged, unsaleable products.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
waystIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈweɪst
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Excess of material, useless by-products, or damaged, unsaleable products; garbage; rubbish.
The action or progress of wasting; extravagant consumption or ineffectual use.
A large tract of uncultivated land.
Large abundance of something, specifically without it being used.
Gradual loss or decay.
A decaying of the body by disease; atrophy; wasting away.
verb
transitive
To squander (money or resources) uselessly; to spend (time) idly; to dissipate.
transitive
To devastate; to destroy.
transitive
To wear away by degrees; to impair gradually; to deteriorate; to diminish by constant loss; to use up; to consume; to spend; to wear out.
intransitive
To gradually lose weight, weaken, become frail.
intransitive
To be diminished; to lose bulk, substance, strength, value etc. gradually.
transitiveslang
To kill; to murder.
adjective
Rejected as being defective; eliminated as being worthless; produced in excess.
Barren; desert; empty.
Superfluous; needless.
Unfortunate; disappointing.
Dismal; gloomy; cheerless.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To wear away by degrees; to impair gradually; to deteriorate; to diminish by constant loss; to use up; to consume; to spend; to wear out.
Used this way, waste is a reasonably familiar word with a faintly unfavourable edge. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Critical or judgemental
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use waste
- “If the effort brings no compensating gain it is a waste.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Diminished in size or strength as a result of disease or injury or lack of use.
Any general reduction in vitality and strength of body and mind resulting from a debilitating chronic disease.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
Tending to squander and waste.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A container with an open top.
A pipe through which liquid is carried away.
Any materials unused and rejected as worthless or unwanted.
A piece of land where waste materials are dumped.
A useless consumption of material.
A useless effort.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Water mixed with waste matter.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.