noun
- Any general reduction in vitality and strength of body and mind resulting from a debilitating chronic disease.
- A decrease in size of an organ caused by disease or disuse.
- synonyms: atrophy, wasting away
verb
- Spend thoughtlessly; throw away.
- usage: "He wasted his inheritance on his insincere friends"; "You squandered the opportunity to get and advanced degree"
- Use inefficiently or inappropriately.
- usage: "waste heat"; "waste a joke on an unappreciative audience"
- synonyms: waste
- Get rid of.
- usage: "We waste the dirty water by channeling it into the sewer"
- synonyms: waste
- Run off as waste.
- usage: "The water wastes back into the ocean"
- Get rid of (someone who may be a threat) by killing.
- usage: "The mafia liquidated the informer"; "the double agent was neutralized"
- synonyms: neutralize, neutralise, liquidate, waste, knock off, do in
- Spend extravagantly.
- usage: "waste not, want not"
- Lose vigor, health, or flesh, as through grief.
- usage: "After her husband died, she just pined away"
- Cause to grow thin or weak.
- usage: "The treatment emaciated him"
- Cause extensive destruction or ruin utterly.
- usage: "The enemy lay waste to the countryside after the invasion"
- Become physically weaker.
- usage: "Political prisoners are wasting away in many prisons all over the world"
WordNet 3.0 © 2006 by Princeton University
| APA | WordNet. (2010). Wasting. Retrieved September 22, 2026, from http://smartdefine.org/wasting/definitions/1320141 |
| Chicago | WordNet. 2010. "Wasting" http://smartdefine.org/wasting/definitions/1320141 (accessed September 22, 2026). |
| Harvard | WordNet 2010, Wasting, Smart Define, viewed 22 September, 2026, <http://smartdefine.org/wasting/definitions/1320141>. |
| MLA | WordNet. "Wasting" 23 October 2010. Web. 22 September 2026. <http://smartdefine.org/wasting/definitions/1320141> |