From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Waste \Waste\, verb (used with an object) [imp. & p. p. {Wasted}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Wasting}.] [OE. wasten, OF. waster, guaster, gaster, F. g[^a]ter to spoil, L. vastare to devastate, to lay waste, fr. vastus waste, desert, uncultivated, ravaged, vast, but influenced by a kindred German word; cf. OHG. wuosten, G. w["u]sten, AS. w[=e]stan. See {Waste}, adjective]
1. To bring to ruin; to devastate; to desolate; to destroy.
Thou barren ground, whom winter's wrath hath wasted, Art made a mirror to behold my plight. --Spenser.
The Tiber Insults our walls, and wastes our fruitful grounds. --Dryden.
2. To wear away by degrees; to impair gradually; to diminish by constant loss; to use up; to consume; to spend; to wear out.
Until your carcasses be wasted in the wilderness. --Num. xiv. 33.
O, were I able To waste it all myself, and leave ye none! --Milton.
Here condemned To waste eternal days in woe and pain. --Milton.
Wasted by such a course of life, the infirmities of age daily grew on him. --Robertson.
3. 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.
The younger son gathered all together, and . . . wasted his substance with riotous living. --Luke xv. 13.
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. --Gray.
4. (Law) To damage, impair, or injure, as an estate, voluntarily, or by suffering the buildings, fences, etc., to go to decay.
Syn: To squander; dissipate; lavish; desolate.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
adjective
1: serving no useful purpose; having no excuse for being; "otiose lines in a play"; "advice is wasted words" [syn: {otiose}, {pointless}, {superfluous}]
2: not used to good advantage; "squandered money cannot be replaced"; "a wasted effort" [syn: {squandered}]
3: (of an organ or body part) diminished in size or strength as a result of disease or injury or lack of use; "partial paralysis resulted in an atrophied left arm" [syn: {atrophied}, {diminished}] [ant: {hypertrophied}]
4: very thin especially from disease or hunger or cold; "emaciated bony hands"; "a nightmare population of gaunt men and skeletal boys"; "eyes were haggard and cavernous"; "small pinched faces"; "kept life in his wasted frame only by grim concentration" [syn: {bony}, {cadaverous}, {emaciated}, {gaunt}, {haggard}, {pinched}, {skeletal}]
5: made uninhabitable; "upon this blasted heath"- Shakespeare; "a wasted landscape" [syn: {blasted}, {desolate}, {desolated}, {devastated}, {ravaged}, {ruined}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
157 Moby Thesaurus words for "wasted": Sanforized, ablated, acarpous, arid, atrophied, attenuated, ausgespielt, bankrupt, barren, blasted, blighted, brittle, broken, burned-out, burnt up, by the board, cadaverous, celibate, childless, consumed, corky, corpselike, depleted, desert, desiccated, desolate, desolated, destroyed, devastated, devitalized, disabled, dissipated, done for, done in, down the drain, down-and-out, drained, dried-up, dry, eaten up, effete, emacerated, emaciate, emaciated, enervated, enfeebled, eroded, eviscerated, exhausted, expended, fallen, fallow, fatigued, finished, forfeit, forfeited, fruitless, gaunt, gelded, gone, gone to pot, gone to waste, haggard, hollow-eyed, impotent, impoverished, in ruins, incapacitated, ineffectual, infecund, infertile, irremediable, irretrievable, issueless, jejune, kaput, leached, long-lost, lost, lost to, marantic, marasmic, meager, menopausal, misspent, nonfertile, nonproducing, nonproductive, nonprolific, out the window, overthrown, papery, parched, parchmenty, peaked, peaky, pinched, played out, poor, preshrunk, puny, ravaged, ruined, ruinous, run to seed, run-down, sapped, sear, sere, shriveled, shriveled up, shrunk, shrunken, sine prole, skeletal, spent, spoiled, squandered, starved, starveling, sterile, sucked dry, tabetic, tabid, teemless, thin, uncultivated, underfed, undernourished, undone, unfertile, unfruitful, unplowed, unproductive, unprolific, unsown, untilled, used, used up, virgin, waste, wasted away, weakened, weazened, weazeny, wilted, withered, without issue, wizen, wizen-faced, wizened, worn, worn away, worn-out, wraithlike, wrecked, wrinkled
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