v.
- use carelessly, extravagantly, or to no purpose.
▸
(
usu. be wasted on)
expend on an unappreciative recipient:
small talk was wasted on him.
▸fail to make full or good use of.
-
(often waste away)
become progressively weaker and more emaciated.
- literary lay waste to.
- N. Amer. informal kill or severely injure.
-
[as adj. wasted]
informal under the influence of alcohol or illegal drugs.
- literary (of time) pass away.
adj.
- eliminated or discarded as no longer useful or required.
- (of an area of land, typically an urban one) not used, cultivated, or built on.
n.
- an act or instance of wasting.
- unusable or unwanted material.
- a large area of barren, typically uninhabited land.
- Law damage to an estate caused by an act or by neglect, especially by a life tenant.
Phrase
- go to waste
be wasted. - lay waste to
(or lay something (to) waste)
completely destroy. - waste of space
informal a person perceived as useless.
Etymology
ME: from Old North. Fr. wast(e) (n.), waster (v.), based on L. vastus ‘unoccupied, uncultivated’.