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1. Spend thoughtlessly; throw away
   "He wasted his inheritance on his insincere friends";
   - blow [informal], squander
    
2. Use inefficiently or inappropriately
   "waste heat"; "waste a joke on an unappreciative audience"
    
3. Dispose of
   "We waste the dirty water by channeling it into the sewer"
    
4. Run off as waste
   "The water wastes back into the ocean";
   - run off
    
5. Get rid of (someone who may be a threat) by killing
   "the double agent was wasted";
   - neutralize, neutralise [Brit], liquidate, knock off [informal], do in
    
6. Spend extravagantly
   "waste not, want not";
   - consume, squander, ware [archaic]
    
7. Lose vigour, health, or flesh, as through grief
   - pine away, languish
    
8. Cause to grow thin or weak
   "The treatment wasted him";
   - emaciate, macerate
    
9. Cause extensive destruction or ruin utterly
   "The enemy lay waste to the countryside after the invasion";
   - lay waste to, devastate, desolate, ravage, scourge, lay waste
    
10. Become physically weaker
    "Political prisoners are wasting away in many prisons all over the world";
    - rot

1. Any materials unused and rejected as worthless or unwanted
   "they collect the waste once a week"; "much of the waste material is carried off in the sewers"; "they collect the waste matter once a week";
   - waste material, waste matter, waste product
    
2. Useless or profitless activity; using or expending or consuming thoughtlessly or carelessly
   "if the effort brings no compensating gain it is a waste";
   - wastefulness, dissipation
    
3. The trait of wasting resources
   "a life characterized by thriftlessness and waste";
   - thriftlessness, wastefulness
    
4. An uninhabited wilderness that is worthless for cultivation
   "the trackless wastes of the desert";
   - barren, wasteland
    
5. (law) reduction in the value of an estate caused by act or neglect
   - permissive waste

1. Located in a dismal or remote area; desolate
   "waste places";
   - godforsaken, wild
    
2. (of material etc) not needed, unwanted or worthless, for disposal; produced as an unwanted byproduct
   "The waste gas disposal system should be connected"

Sounds like:

Derived forms: wasted, wastes, wasting

See also: inhospitable

Type of: act, activity, apply, cast aside, cast away, cast out, chuck out, course, debilitate, deed, degenerate, destroy, deteriorate, devolve, discard, dispose, drain, drop, employ, enfeeble, expend, feed, fling, flow, human action, human activity, improvidence, kill, material, put away, ruin, run, shortsightedness, spend, stuff, throw away, throw out, toss, toss away, toss out, use, utilise [Brit], utilize, weaken, wild, wilderness

Antonym: conserve

Encyclopedia: Waste, radioactive