waste

I

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

Gradual loss or decay

Nouns

1. waste, wastage; dissipation; dispersion; ebb; leakage, loss; wear and tear; extravagance, wastefulness, prodigality, conspicuous consumption; waste of time; jeunesse dorée; misuse; wasting, deterioration. Slang, pissing match. See use, insufficiency, weakness.

2. waster, wastrel, spendthrift, spender, prodigal, squanderer, profligate. Informal, sport.

Verbs

1. waste, spend, misspend, expend, use, misuse, use up, consume, swallow up, overtax, exhaust; impoverish; spill, drain, empty; disperse; cast, fool, throw, fling, or fritter away; burn the candle at both ends; go or run through, squander; waste powder and shot, labor in vain; pour water into a sieve; leak, run out; ebb, melt away, run dry, dry up; deteriorate; throw to the winds; cast pearls before swine; throw good money after bad, play ducks and drakes with, spend as if there were no tomorrow. Informal, blow. Slang, jack or fart around, screw the pooch, piss away.

2. be wasted, give out; go to waste, go for nothing.

Adjectives

1. wasted, thrown away.

2. wasteful, prodigal, profligate, improvident, thriftless, unthrifty, extravagant, lavish, consumptive.

Phrase — easy come, easy go; penny wise and pound foolish; willful waste makes woeful want; waste not, want not.

Quotations — That's the way the money goes — pop goes the weasel! (W. R. Mandale), All decent people live beyond their incomes nowadays, and those who aren't respectable live beyond other people's (Saki), Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, and the trouble is, I don't know which half (John Wanamaker), Each generation wastes a little more of the future with greed and lust for riches (Don Marquis), Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air (Thomas Gray), I wasted time, and now doth time waste me (Shakespeare), No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted (Aesop), The national vice is waste (Henry Miller).

Antonyms, see store, parsimony, economy.

II

(Roget's IV) modif.

Syn. futile, discarded, worthless, valueless, useless, empty, barren, dreary, uninhabited, desolate, profitless, superfluous, unnecessary, functionless, purposeless, pointless, unserviceable.

Ant. usable*, preserved, valuable.

n.

1. [The state of being wasted]

Syn. disuse, misuse, dissipation, consumption, uselessness, devastation, ruin, decay, dilapidation, loss, exhaustion, extravagance, squandering, wear and tear, wrack and ruin; see also wear .

Ant. use*, profit*, value*.

2. [Refuse]

Syn. rubbish, garbage, scrap; see excess 4 , trash 1 , 3 .

3. [Unused land]

Syn. desert, wilds, wilderness, dustbowl, wasteland, tundra, marsh, marshland, badlands, bog, fen, moor, quagmire, swamp, wash.

Syn.- waste , in this connection, is the general word for any stretch of uncultivable, hence uninhabitable, land; a desert is a barren, arid, usually sandy tract of land; badlands is applied to a barren, hilly waste where rapid erosion has cut the soft rocks into fantastic shapes; wilderness refers to an uninhabited waste where a lack of paths or trails makes it difficult to find one's way, esp. to such a region thickly covered with trees and underbrush v.

1. [To use without result]

Syn. dissipate, spend, consume, lose, be of no avail, come to nothing, go to waste, misuse, throw away, use up, misapply, misemploy, labor in vain, cast pearls before swine*, send owls to Athens*, carry coals to Newcastle*.

Ant. profit*, use well, get results.

2. [To squander]

Syn. burn up, lavish, scatter, splurge, spend, be prodigal, indulge, abuse, empty, drain, use up, deplete, fatigue, spill, impoverish, misspend, exhaust, fritter away, fool away, ruin, be spendthrift, divert, go through, gamble away, throw money into a well*, run through*, hang the expense*, scatter to the winds*, blow*, burn the candle at both ends*.

Ant. save*, be thrifty, manage wisely.

3. [To be consumed gradually]

Syn. decay, thin out, become thin, dwindle, lose weight, be diseased, run dry, run to seed, wilt, droop, decrease, disappear, drain, empty, wear.

Ant. grow*, develop, enrich.

III

(Roget's 3 Superthesaurus)

I

n.

1. trash rubbish, garbage, refuse, junk, leavings, scrap, debris, rubble, *crap, hazardous waste, discharge.

2. excrementfeces, droppings, *crap, sewage.

3. wastefulness squandering, extravagance, excessive-ness, lavishness, *spending like there's no tomorrow, consumption, conspicuous consumption, misuse, dissipation.

ANT.: 3. conservation, frugality, economy, saving, thrift

II

v.

1. squander lavish, fritter away, *blow, *piss away, *spend like there's no tomorrow, dissipate, misspend, mismanage, spend extravagantly, splurge, throw away, idle, loiter, fiddle and diddle, loaf, procrastinate.

2. lose one's health or strength waste away, dwindle, fail, weaken, emaciate, atrophy, *circle the drain, wither, deteriorate, decay, decline, *go downhill.

3. destroy ruin, devastate, wreck, demolish, lay waste, spoil, strip, ravage.

ANT.: 1. conserve, save, economize. 2. strengthen, grow, put on weight. 3. build up, repair

IV

(Roget's Thesaurus II) I verb 1. To use up foolishly or needlessly: consume, devour, dissipate, squander. See SAVE. 2. To spend (money) excessively and usually foolishly: consume, dissipate, fool away, fritter away, riot away, squander, throw away, trifle away. Slang: blow1. See SAVE. 3. To pass (time) without working or in avoiding work: dawdle (away), fiddle away, idle (away), kill1, trifle away, while (away), wile (away). See INDUSTRIOUS. 4. To lose strength or power. Also used with away: decline, degenerate, deteriorate, fade, fail, flag2, languish, sink, wane, weaken. Informal: fizzle (out). Idioms: go downhill, hit the skids. See INCREASE, STRONG. 5. To fail to take advantage of: lose, miss. Idioms: let slip, let slip through one's fingers, lose out on. See USED. 6. To do away with completely and destructively: consume, devour, eat (up), swallow (up). See HELP. 7. To destroy completely as or as if by conquering: desolate, devastate, ravage. Idiom: lay waste. See HELP. 8. Slang. To cause the death of: carry off, cut down, cut off, destroy, dispatch, finish (off), kill1, slay. Slang: zap. Idioms: put an end to, put to sleep. See HELP. 9. Slang. To take the life of (a person or persons) unlawfully: destroy, finish (off), kill1, liquidate, murder, slay. Informal: put away. Slang: bump off, do in, knock off, off, rub out, wipe out, zap. See HELP. II noun 1. Excessive or imprudent expenditure: extravagance, extravagancy, lavishness, prodigality, profligacy, profuseness, profusion, squander, wastefulness. See CAREFUL, SAVE. 2. A tract of unproductive land: badlands, barren (often used in plural), desert1, wasteland, wilderness. See RICH.