Other forms: wasted, wastes, wasting
To waste is to use time, money or material badly, so that nothing comes of it. Waste time, waste money, don't waste the paper.
The noun covers both the act and the material: a waste of time, and household waste, meaning rubbish. That second sense is the standard one in environmental and council language — waste collection, food waste, waste disposal. Note the fixed phrase go to waste, meaning to be thrown away unused, and waste away, meaning to grow steadily thinner and weaker. Wasted has a slang sense meaning very drunk, which is worth knowing before meeting it.
1verbwasteTo use something badly so that nothing comes of it.
“Do not waste the whole afternoon on it.”
synonyms: squander, fritter away
2nounvaluableA bad use of something valuable.
“The meeting was a complete waste of time.”
3nounrubbishMaterial thrown away.
“Household waste is collected on Tuesdays.”
synonyms: rubbish, refuse
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
waste is a bad use, or discarded material.
Latin vastus meant empty or desolate — the same word behind vast, which kept the size and dropped the emptiness. A waste was originally an empty stretch of land, and wasting something was reducing it to that state.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₁weh₂- — empty, wasted
Proto-Germanic
*wōstaz
Frankish
*wōstī — a waste
fro-nor
wast
Middle English
wast
English, today
waste
Built from
From Middle English wast, waste (“a waste”), from Anglo-Norman -, fro-nor 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
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA