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.”
1 |
vn |
use inefficiently or inappropriately
the trait of wasting resources
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2 |
v |
get rid of
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3 |
v |
lose vigor, health, or flesh, as through grief
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4 |
v |
cause extensive destruction or ruin utterly
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5 |
nadj |
an uninhabited wilderness that is worthless for cultivation
located in a dismal or remote area; desolate
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