waste
• verb 1 use carelessly, extravagantly, or to no purpose. 2 fail to make full or good use of. 3 (be wasted on) be unappreciated by. 4 (often waste away) become progressively weaker and more emaciated. 5 literary lay waste to. 6 N. Amer. informal kill or severely injure. 7 wasted informal under the influence of alcohol or illegal drugs. • adjective 1 eliminated or discarded as no longer useful or required. 2 (of an area of land) not used, cultivated, or built on. • noun 1 an act or instance of wasting. 2 unusable or unwanted material. 3 a large area of barren, uninhabited land. — PHRASES go to waste be wasted. lay waste (to) completely destroy. waste not, want not proverb if you use a commodity or resource carefully and without extravagance you will never be in need. — ORIGIN Old French, from Latin vastus ‘unoccupied, uncultivated’.
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