Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Not profitably used or maintained.
  • adjective Needless or superfluous.
  • adjective Deteriorated; ravaged.
  • adjective Frail and enfeebled, as from prolonged illness; emaciated.
  • adjective Slang Drunk or intoxicated.
  • adjective Archaic Having elapsed.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Not profitably used.
  • adjective Ravaged or deteriorated.
  • adjective Emaciated and haggard.
  • adjective slang very drunk or stoned.
  • adjective medicine low weight-for-height (for a person).
  • verb Simple past tense and past participle of waste.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective serving no useful purpose; having no excuse for being
  • adjective not used to good advantage
  • adjective very thin especially from disease or hunger or cold
  • adjective (of an organ or body part) diminished in size or strength as a result of disease or injury or lack of use

Etymologies

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Examples

  • In short, at a tolerably large wine-party there was wasted, or _worse than wasted_, a quantity of Port wine sufficient to check the ravages of a typhus fever in an entire village.

    Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew Edward Berens

  • As brilliantly demonstrated in Jeff James's assured revival at The Print Room, in Bayswater, there's not a word wasted in this quietly harrowing portrait of a high-ranking official in an unnamed autocratic state conducting a series of sinister, sadistic "chats" with three detained and abused members of the same family: husband, wife and child.

    Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph Dominic Cavendish 2011

  • Will they elect another Democratic Senator only to see his term wasted by the dying remnants of Plantation and slave owners?

    Best of the Blogs the national gadfly 2009

  • Mira took a nap, woke, heated a TV dinner, and prepared to study late into the night to make up for what she called a wasted day.

    The Women’s Room Marilyn French 1977

  • Mira took a nap, woke, heated a TV dinner, and prepared to study late into the night to make up for what she called a wasted day.

    The Women’s Room Marilyn French 1977

  • Mira took a nap, woke, heated a TV dinner, and prepared to study late into the night to make up for what she called a wasted day.

    The Women’s Room Marilyn French 1977

  • Instead of looking at this issue for what it is, we get a petty post about $2-$3 million in "wasted" money.

    Sound Politics: Your tax dollars at work 2007

  • This is one of the worst, it's costing this country billions of dollars in wasted funds, I feel as though there should be no argument as to whether or not this healthcare system of ours needs to be reformed, if the Republicans can actually come up with a better proposal then maybe we can reach some middle ground here.

    Brothers spar over health care reform 2009

  • FLATOW: And I'm trying to get my head around that fact that you just said, and the energy wasted is more than all the ethanol we're making ...

    Few Americans Finish Their Vegetables 2010

  • FLATOW: And I'm trying to get my head around that fact that you just said, and the energy wasted is more than all the ethanol we're making ...

    Few Americans Finish Their Vegetables 2010

Comments

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  • "Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania noted last month on Meet the Press that 'our troops are tired and worn out. (With respect to the) Pennsylvania National Guard, most of our guardsmen have been to either Iraq (or) Afghanistan, over 85 percent, and many of them have gone three or four times and they’re wasted.'”

    - William Astore, They’re Wasted: The Price of Pushing Our Troops Too Far, tomdispatch.com, 16 Dec 2009.

    December 16, 2009

  • You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

    December 16, 2009