American Heritage Dictionary Entry: waste HOW TO USE THE DICTIONARY To look up an entry in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, use the search window above. For best results, after typing in the word, click on the “Search” button instead of using the “enter” key. Some compound words (like bus rapid transit, dog whistle, or identity theft) don’t appear on the drop-down list when you type them in the search bar. For best results with compound words, place a quotation mark before the compound word in the search window. guide to the dictionary THE USAGE PANEL The Usage Panel is a group of nearly 200 prominent scholars, creative writers, journalists, diplomats, and others in occupations requiring mastery of language. Annual surveys have gauged the acceptability of particular usages and grammatical constructions. The Panelists NEED HELP SOLVING A CROSSWORD PUZZLE? Go to our Crossword Puzzle Solver and type in the letters that you know, and the Solver will produce a list of possible solutions. -- AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY APP The new American Heritage Dictionary app is now available for iOS and Android. THE AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY BLOG The articles in our blog examine new words, revised definitions, interesting images from the fifth edition, discussions of usage, and more. OPEN DICTIONARY PROJECT Share your ideas for new words and new meanings of old words! Start Sharing Now! -- See word lists from the best-selling 100 Words Series! Find out more! INTERESTED IN DICTIONARIES? Check out the Dictionary Society of North America at http://www.dictionarysociety.com waste (wāst) Share: Tweet v. wast·ed, wast·ing, wastes v.tr. 1. To use, consume, spend, or expend thoughtlessly or carelessly. 2. To cause to lose energy, strength, or vigor; exhaust, tire, or enfeeble: Disease wasted his body. 3. To fail to take advantage of or use for profit; lose: waste an opportunity. 4. a. To destroy completely: The invaders wasted the village. b. Slang To kill; murder. v.intr. 1. To lose energy, strength, weight, or vigor; become weak or enfeebled: wasting away from an illness. 2. To pass without being put to use: Time is wasting. n. 1. The act or an instance of wasting or the condition of being wasted: a waste of talent; gone to waste. 2. A place, region, or land that is uninhabited or uncultivated; a desert or wilderness. 3. A devastated or destroyed region, town, or building; a ruin. 4. a. An unusable or unwanted substance or material, such as a waste product: industrial wastes. b. Something, such as steam, that escapes without being used. 5. Garbage; trash. 6. The undigested residue of food eliminated from the body; excrement. adj. 1. Regarded or discarded as worthless or useless: waste trimmings. 2. Used as a conveyance or container for refuse: a waste bin. 3. Excreted from the body: waste matter.Idiom: waste (one's) breath To gain or accomplish nothing by speaking. [Middle English wasten, from Old North French waster, from Latin vāstāre, to make empty, from vāstus, empty; see euə- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.] Synonyms: waste, blow1, dissipate, fritter1, squander These verbs mean to spend or expend without restraint and often to no avail: wasted my inheritance; blew a fortune at the casino; dissipated their energies in pointless argument; frittering away her entire allowance; squandered his talent on writing jingles. Antonym: save1 The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved. Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices: Indo-European Roots Semitic Roots The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. 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