wasting

Pluralwastings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of waste.

   Stop wasting the last of the daylight and get to work.

   She regretted wasting so many years on a job she hated.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every meaning of the verb, so the surrounding words decide which one is meant. With an object it usually means squandering: wasting money, wasting the daylight. More rarely it means devastating land, and in slang it can mean killing someone. Without an object, especially in wasting away, it describes something steadily losing bulk, strength or value.

2. 2
   adjective

   Causing gradual decline or a pronounced loss of body mass.

   Tuberculosis was long feared as a wasting disease with no reliable cure.

   The vet diagnosed a wasting condition in the older cattle.

   Similardebilitating, degenerative

   Note

   Behind the adjective stands the intransitive verb waste away: a wasting disease is one under which the body wastes away. It normally sits before its noun, as in a wasting illness or a wasting condition. It is also not graded. A condition is wasting or it is not, and English does not say "more wasting" or "very wasting."

3. 3
   nouncountable or uncountable

   Gradual deterioration or decline, the slow weakening and wasting away of the body or of some material.

   Years of illness led to a steady wasting of his muscles.

   The wasting of the old timber frame went unnoticed for years.

   Similaratrophy, deterioration, decline, decay, emaciation

   Oppositegrowth, strengthening

   Note

   Here the decline comes from within, unlike the destruction someone inflicts. The wasting of an old timber frame happens on its own, while the wasting of a countryside has someone doing it. Most often it is a mass noun, as in the wasting of his muscles. It can also be counted when separate instances are in view, which gives the plural muscular wastings.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   The act of laying something waste, leaving destruction or devastation behind.

   The wasting of the countryside during the war left whole villages empty.

   The wasting of the forest by the invaders angered the local people.

   Similardevastation, destruction, ravaging, despoliation

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