waste
/ˈweɪ̯st/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.81 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Excess of material, useless by-products, or damaged, unsaleable products; garbage; rubbish.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "The cage was littered with animal waste."
- "We went down accordingly into the waste, and began to make our toilsome and devious travel towards the eastern verge."
- "The pampas of Argentina and the chilly wastes of Patagonia, like the prairies and deserts of North America, were largely shunned by Spanish settlers until the 1870s."
- "That was a waste of time!"
- "Her life seemed a waste."
- "'Rebel railwaymen' at Birmingham New Street refused to wear the new uniforms on the grounds that they were a "complete waste of public money"."
Etymology
From Middle English wast, waste (“a waste”, noun), from Anglo-Norman, Old Northern French wast, waste (“a waste”), from Frankish *wōstī (“a waste”), from Proto-Germanic *wōstaz, *wōstuz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁weh₂- (“empty, wasted”). Displaced native Middle English wernen (“to refuse”) likely due to the similar sounding Middle English warnen
Origin
Word Breakdown
Usage
Inflected Forms
wastes (plural)
more waste (comparative)
most waste (superlative)
wastes (present, singular)
wasting (participle, present)
wasted (participle, past)
wasted (past)
no-table-tags (table tags)
glossary (inflection template)
wasted (first person, past)
wastest (archaic, present)
wasted (past, second person)
Derived Forms
Phrases
Frequently Paired Words
Waste in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)