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wasting

adjective · verb · noun

Form of waste , present participle of waste.

Simple meaning

Causing pronounced loss of body mass.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

waysting

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈweɪstɪŋ

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. Causing a waste, or wasting away; causing pronounced loss of body mass.

verb

  1. present participle of waste

    To squander (money or resources) uselessly; to spend (time) idly; to dissipate.

  2. present participle of waste

    To devastate; to destroy.

  3. To wear away by degrees; to impair gradually; to diminish by constant loss; to use up; to consume; to spend; to wear out.

  4. Gradually lose weight, weaken, become frail.

  5. To be diminished; to lose bulk, substance, strength, value etc. gradually.

  6. To kill; to murder.

noun

  1. Gradual deterioration or wasting away.

  2. The act by which something is laid waste; destruction.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
Frequency
Moderately Common
Formality
Technical

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Causing a waste, or wasting away; causing pronounced loss of body mass.

Used this way, wasting 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.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

wasting diseasewasting money

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • wasteverbBase word

    Spend thoughtlessly.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • wastefuladjectiveDerived adjective

    Tending to squander and waste.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • wasting awaynounCompound term

    A decrease in size of an organ caused by disease or disuse.

  • wasting diseasenounCompound term

    Involving the lungs with progressive wasting of the body.

  • chronic wasting diseasenounCompound term

    A wildlife disease (akin to bovine spongiform encephalitis) that affects deer and elk.

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API (CC BY-SA 3.0). Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.