To diminish by gradual dissipation or loss. Thus disease wastes the patient; sorrows waste the strength and spirits.

To cause to be lost; to destroy by scattering or by injury. Thus cattle waste their fodder when fed in the open field.

To expend without necessity or use; to destroy wantonly or luxuriously; to squander; to cause to be lost through wantonness or negligence. Careless people waste their fuel, their food or their property. Children waster their inheritance. And wasted his substance with riotous living. Luke 15:13.

To destroy in enmity; to desolate; as, to waste an enemys country.

To suffer to be lost unnecessarily; or to throw away; as, to waste the blood and treasure of a nation.

To destroy by violence. The Tyber insults our walls, and wastes our fruitful grounds.

To impair strength gradually. Now wasting years my former strength confounds.

To lose in idleness or misery; to wear out. Here condemnd to waste eternal days in woe and pain.

To spend; to consume. O were I able to waste it all myself, and leave you none .

In law, to damage, impair or injure, as an estate, voluntarily, or by suffering the buildings, fencesTo go to decay. See the Noun.

To exhaust; to be consumed by time or mortality. Till your carcasses be wasted in the wilderness. Wumbers 14:33.

To scatter and lose for want of use or of occupiers. Full many a flowr is born to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air.

To dwindle; to be diminished; to lose bulk or substance gradually; as, the body wastes in sickness. The barrel of meal shall not waste.7 Kings 17:14.

To be diminished or lost by slow dissipation, consumption or evaporation; as, water wastes by evaporation; fuel wastes in combustion.

To be consumed by time or mortality. But man dieth, and wasteth away. Job 74:10.

Destroyed; ruined. The Sophi leaves all waste in his retreat.

Desolate; uncultivated; as a waste country; a waste howling wilderness. Deuteronomy 32:10.

Destitute; stripped; as lands laid waste.

Superfluous; lost for want of occupiers. --And strangled with her waste fertility: .

Worthless; that which is rejected, or used only for mean purposes; as waste wood.