Definition of waste

• a. - Desolate; devastated; stripped; bare; hence, dreary; dismal; gloomy; cheerless.
• a. - Lying unused; unproductive; worthless; valueless; refuse; rejected; as, waste land; waste paper.
• a. - Lost for want of occupiers or use; superfluous.
• a. - To bring to ruin; to devastate; to desolate; to destroy.
• a. - To wear away by degrees; to impair gradually; to diminish by constant loss; to use up; to consume; to spend; to wear out.
• a. - To spend unnecessarily or carelessly; to employ prodigally; to expend without valuable result; to apply to useless purposes; to lavish vainly; to squander; to cause to be lost; to destroy by scattering or injury.
• a. - To damage, impair, or injure, as an estate, voluntarily, or by suffering the buildings, fences, etc., to go to decay.
• v. i. - To be diminished; to lose bulk, substance, strength, value, or the like, gradually; to be consumed; to dwindle; to grow less.
• v. i. - To procure or sustain a reduction of flesh; -- said of a jockey in preparation for a race, etc.
• v. - The act of wasting, or the state of being wasted; a squandering; needless destruction; useless consumption or expenditure; devastation; loss without equivalent gain; gradual loss or decrease, by use, wear, or decay; as, a waste of property, time, labor, words, etc.
• v. - That which is wasted or desolate; a devastated, uncultivated, or wild country; a deserted region; an unoccupied or unemployed space; a dreary void; a desert; a wilderness.
• v. - That which is of no value; worthless remnants; refuse. Specifically: Remnants of cops, or other refuse resulting from the working of cotton, wool, hemp, and the like, used for wiping machinery, absorbing oil in the axle boxes of railway cars, etc.
• v. - 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.
• v. - Old or abandoned workings, whether left as vacant space or filled with refuse.