King James Bible Dictionary

WAST, past tense of the substantive verb, in the second person; as, thou wast

WASTE, verb transitive [G., Latin ]

1. To diminish by gradual dissipation or loss. Thus disease wastes the patient; sorrows waste the strength and spirits.

2. To cause to be lost; to destroy by scattering or by injury. Thus cattle waste their fodder when fed in the open field.

3. To expend without necessity or use; to destroy wantonly or luxuriously; to squander; to cause to be lost through wantonness or negligence. Careless people waste their fuel, their food or their property. Children waster their inheritance.

And wasted his substance with riotous living. Luke 15:13.

4. To destroy in enmity; to desolate; as, to waste an enemys country.

5. To suffer to be lost unnecessarily; or to throw away; as, to waste the blood and treasure of a nation.

6. To destroy by violence.

The Tyber insults our walls, and wastes our fruitful grounds.

7. To impair strength gradually.

Now wasting years my former strength confounds.

8. To lose in idleness or misery; to wear out.

Here condemnd to waste eternal days in woe and pain.

9. To spend; to consume.

O were I able to waste it all myself, and leave you none.

10. In law, to damage, impair or injure, as an estate, voluntarily, or by suffering the buildings, fences, etc. To go to decay. See the Noun.

11. To exhaust; to be consumed by time or mortality.

Till your carcasses be wasted in the wilderness. Numbers 14:33.

12. To scatter and lose for want of use or of occupiers.

Full many a flowr is born to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air.

WASTE, verb intransitive

1. To dwindle; to be diminished; to lose bulk or substance gradually; as, the body wastes in sickness.

The barrel of meal shall not waste 1 Kings 17:14.

2. To be diminished or lost by slow dissipation, consumption or evaporation; as, water wastes by evaporation; fuel wastes in combustion.

3. To be consumed by time or mortality.

Gut man dieth, and wasteth away. Job 14:1.

WASTE, adjective

1. Destroyed; ruined.

The Sophi leaves all waste in his retreat.

2. Desolate; uncultivated; as a waste country; a waste howling wilderness. Deuteronomy 32:10.

3. Destitute; stripped; as lands laid waste

4. Superfluous; lost for want of occupiers.

--And strangled with her waste fertility.

5. Worthless; that which is rejected, or used only for mean purposes; as waste wood.

6. That of which no account is taken, or of which no value is found; as waste paper.

7. Uncultivated; untilled; unproductive.

There is yet much waste land in England.

Laid waste desolated; ruined.

WASTE, noun

1. The act of squandering; the dissipation of property through wantonness, ambition, extravagance, luxury or negligence.

For all this waste of wealth, and loss of blood.

2. Consumption; loss; useless expense; any loss or destruction which is neither necessary nor promotive of a good end; a loss for which there is no equivalent; as a waste of goods or money; a waste of time; a waste of labor; a waste of words.

Little wastes in great establishments, constantly occurring, may defeat the energies of a mighty capital.

3. A desolate or uncultivated country. The plains of Arabia are mostly a wide waste

4. Land untilled, though capable of tillage; as the wastes in England.

5. Ground, space or place unoccupied; as the etherial waste

In the dead waste and middle of the night.

6. Region ruined and deserted.

All the leafy nation sinks at last, and Vulcan rides in triumph oer the waste

7. Mischief; destruction.

He will never, I think, in the way of waste attempt us again.

8. In law, spoil, destruction or injury done to houses, woods, fences, lands, etc., by a tenant for life or for years, to the prejudice of the heir, or of him in reversion or remainder. waste is voluntary, as by pulling down buildings; or permissive, as by suffering them to fall for want of necessary repairs. Whatever does a lasting damage to the freehold, is a waste

WASTED, participle passive

1. Expended without necessity or use; lost through negligence; squandered.

2. Diminished; dissipated; evaporated; exhausted.

3. Desolated; ruined; destroyed.

WASTEFUL, adjective

1. Lavish; prodigal; expending property, or that which is valuable, without necessity or use; applied to persons.

2. Destructive to property; ruinous; as wasteful practices or negligence; wasteful expenses.

3. Desolate; unoccupied; untilled; uncultivated.

In wilderness and wasteful deserts strayd.

WASTEFULLY, adverb In a lavish manner; with prodigality; in useless expenses or consumption.

Her lavish hand is wastefully profuse.

WASTEFULNESS, noun Lavishness; prodigality; the act or practice of expending what is valuable without necessity or use.

WASTE-GATE, noun A gate to let the water of a pond pass off when it is not wanted.

WASTEL, noun A particular sort of bread; fine bread or cake.

WASTENESS, noun A desolate state; solitude.

That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness Zephaniah 1:15.

WASTER, noun

1. One who is prodigal; one who squanders property; one who consumes extravagantly or without use.

He also that is slothful in his work, is brother to him who is a great waster Proverbs 18:9.

Sconces are great wasters of candles.

2. A kind of cudgel.

WASTETHRIFT, noun [waste and thrift.] A spendthrift.

WASTE-WIER, noun An overfall or wier for the superfluous water of a canal.

WASTING, participle present tense

1. Lavishing prodigally; expending or consuming without use; diminishing by slow dissipation; desolating; laying waste.

WASTING and relentless war has made ravages, with but few and short intermissions, from the days of the tyrant Nimrod down to the Nimrod of our own age.

2. adjective Diminishing by dissipation or by great destruction; as a wasting disease.

WASTREL, WASTOREL noun Waste substances; any thing cast away as bad. [Local.]

WASTREL, noun A state of waste or common. [Local.]