Waste
King James Dictionary [1]
1. To diminish by gradual dissipation or loss. Thus disease wastes the patient sorrows waste the strength and spirits. 2. To cause to be lost to destroy by scattering or by injury. Thus cattle waste their fodder when fed in the open field. 3. 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 .
4. To destroy in enmity to desolate as, to waste an enemys country. 5. To suffer to be lost unnecessarily or to throw away as, to waste the blood and treasure of a nation. 6. To destroy by violence.
The Tyber insults our walls, and wastes our fruitful grounds.
7. To impair strength gradually.
Now wasting years my former strength confounds.
8. To lose in idleness or misery to wear out.
Here condemnd to waste eternal days in woe and pain.
9. To spend to consume.
O were I able to waste it all myself, and leave you none.
10. In law, to damage, impair or injure, as an estate, voluntarily, or by suffering the buildings, fences, &c. To go to decay. See the Noun. 11. To exhaust to be consumed by time or mortality.
Till your carcasses be wasted in the wilderness. Numbers 14 .
12. 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.
WASTE,
1. To dwindle to be diminished to lose bulk or substance gradually as, the body wastes in sickness.
The barrel of meal shall not waste. 1 Kings 17 .
2. To be diminished or lost by slow dissipation, consumption or evaporation as, water wastes by evaporation fuel wastes in combustion. 3. To be consumed by time or mortality.
Gut man dieth, and wasteth away. Job 14 .
WASTE, a.
1. Destroyed ruined.
The Sophi leaves all waste in his retreat.
2. Desolate uncultivated as a waste country a waste howling wilderness. Deuteronomy 32 . 3. Destitute stripped as lands laid waste. 4. Superfluous lost for want of occupiers.
--And strangled with her waste fertility.
5. Worthless that which is rejected, or used only for mean purposes as waste wood. 6. That of which no account is taken, or of which no value is found as waste paper. 7. Uncultivated untilled unproductive.
There is yet much waste land in England.
Laid waste, desolated ruined.
WASTE, n.
1. The act of squandering the dissipation of property through wantonness, ambition, extravagance, luxury or negligence.
For all this waste of wealth, and loss of blood.
2. Consumption loss useless expense any loss or destruction which is neither necessary nor promotive of a good end a loss for which there is no equivalent as a waste of goods or money a waste of time a waste of labor a waste of words.
Little wastes in great establishments, constantly occurring, may defeat the energies of a mighty capital.
3. A desolate or uncultivated country. The plains of Arabia are mostly a wide waste. 4. Land untilled, though capable of tillage as the wastes in England. 5. Ground, space or place unoccupied as the etherial waste.
In the dead waste and middle of the night.
6. Region ruined and deserted.
All the leafy nation sinks at last, and Vulcan rides in triumph oer the waste.
7. Mischief destruction.
He will never, I think, in the way of waste, attempt us again.
8. In law, spoil, destruction or injury done to houses, woods, fences, lands, &c., by a tenant for life or for years, to the prejudice of the heir, or of him in reversion or remainder. Waste is voluntary, as by pulling down buildings or permissive, as by suffering them to fall for want of necessary repairs. Whatever does a lasting damage to the freehold, is a waste.
Vine's Expository Dictionary of NT Words [2]
"destruction," is translated "waste" in Matthew 26:8; Mark 14:4 . See Destruction , B, II, No. 1.
"to scatter abroad," is used metaphorically of "squandering property," Luke 15:13; 16:1 . See Disperse , Scatter.
"to ravage," is rendered "wasted" in Galatians 1:13 , AV; see Destroy , Note, Havoc.
"to outrage, maltreat," is used in the Middle Voice in Acts 8:3 , of Saul's treatment of the church, RV, "laid waste" (AV, "made havoc of").
Webster's Dictionary [3]
(1): ( a.) 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.
(2): ( v.) That which is wasted or desolate; a devastated, uncultivated, or wild country; a deserted region; an unoccupied or unemployed space; a dreary void; a desert; a wilderness.
(3): ( a.) To damage, impair, or injure, as an estate, voluntarily, or by suffering the buildings, fences, etc., to go to decay.
(4): ( a.) Lying unused; unproductive; worthless; valueless; refuse; rejected; as, waste land; waste paper.
(5): ( a.) Lost for want of occupiers or use; superfluous.
(6): ( a.) To bring to ruin; to devastate; to desolate; to destroy.
(7): ( a.) To wear away by degrees; to impair gradually; to diminish by constant loss; to use up; to consume; to spend; to wear out.
(8): ( n.) Material derived by mechanical and chemical erosion from the land, carried by streams to the sea.
(9): ( a.) Desolate; devastated; stripped; bare; hence, dreary; dismal; gloomy; cheerless.
(10): ( v. i.) To be diminished; to lose bulk, substance, strength, value, or the like, gradually; to be consumed; to dwindle; to grow less.
(11): ( v. i.) To procure or sustain a reduction of flesh; - said of a jockey in preparation for a race, etc.
(12): ( v.) The act of wasting, or the state of being wasted; a squandering; needless destruction; useless consumption or expenditure; devastation; loss without equivalent gain; gradual loss or decrease, by use, wear, or decay; as, a waste of property, time, labor, words, etc.
(13): ( v.) That which is of no value; worthless remnants; refuse. Specifically: Remnants of cops, or other refuse resulting from the working of cotton, wool, hemp, and the like, used for wiping machinery, absorbing oil in the axle boxes of railway cars, etc.
(14): ( v.) Spoil, destruction, or injury, done to houses, woods, fences, lands, etc., by a tenant for life or for years, to the prejudice of the heir, or of him in reversion or remainder.
(15): ( v.) Old or abandoned workings, whether left as vacant space or filled with refuse.
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament [4]
WASTE. —The idea of waste is presented in the Gospels in two figures. (1) The first of these appears in the word διασκορπίζω, which indicates the scattering of one’s possessions. It is the act of the man who, like the Prodigal, makes ‘ducks and drakes’ of his goods ( Luke 15:13), or, like the Unfaithful Steward, squanders his master’s property ( Luke 16:1).
(2) The second word is ἀπώλεια, which denotes the doing to death of that which should have remained to enrich and beautify life. Judas thought that the pouring forth of the ointment upon the head of Christ was ἀπώλεια ( Matthew 26:8 ||). In his opinion it was waste, because the price of it might have been added to his bag, and might have remained to enrich himself ( John 12:6). It was put to a use which did not commend itself to him, and this seemed to the man in whose heart the love of a once accepted Master had now been usurped by the money with which he had been entrusted, a loss of something like ‘three hundred pence’ ( Mark 14:5). It is very significant that Christ used the word, which Judas had applied to Mary, of Judas himself. So far wrong was he that Mary had rendered an ever memorable act of devotion. The true ‘waste’ was in himself; he was the ‘son of waste’ (ὁ υἱὸς τῆς ἀπωλείας, John 17:12). See art. Judas Iscariot in vol. i. p. 909b.
W. W. Holdsworth.
