Word Confusion: Waist versus Waste

Plural for noun: waists

Plural for the noun and third person present verb: wastes
Past tense or past participle: wasted
Gerund or present participle: wasting

• The circumference of a person’s waist
• A narrowing of the trunk of the body above the hips
• The part of a garment encircling or covering the waist
• The point at which a garment is shaped so as to narrow between the rib cage and the hips
• [US] A blouse or bodice
• A narrow part in the middle of anything, such as a violin, an hourglass, the body of a wasp, etc.
• The middle part of a ship, between the forecastle and the quarterdeck

[Of an area of land, typically in a city or town] Not used, cultivated, built on, or in use

• Wild, desolate, barren, or uninhabited
• Desert

[Of regions, towns, etc.] In a state of desolation and ruin, as from devastation or decay

Left over or superfluous

Having served or fulfilled a purpose

• No longer of use

Rejected as useless or worthless

• Refuse

[Physiology] Pertaining to material unused by or unusable to the organism

Noun:
An act or instance of using or expending something carelessly, extravagantly, or to no purpose

• [Archaic] The gradual loss or diminution of something

Material that is not wanted

• The unusable remains or byproducts of something

[Usually wastes] A large area of barren, typically uninhabited land

• A region or place devastated or ruined

[Law] Damage to an estate caused by an act or by neglect, especially by a life-tenant

Devastation or ruin, as from war or fire

Verb, intransitive:
[Of a person or a part of the body] Become progressively weaker and more emaciated

[Literary; of time] Pass away

• Be spent

To be consumed, spent, or employed uselessly or without giving full value or being fully utilized or appreciated

To become gradually consumed, used up, or worn away

To become physically worn

• Lose flesh or strength
• Become emaciated or enfeebled

To diminish gradually

• Dwindle, as wealth, power, etc.

Verb, transitive:
Use or expend carelessly, extravagantly, or to no purpose

• [Usually be wasted on] Bestow or expend on an unappreciative recipient
• [Usually be wasted] Fail to make full or good use of

[Of a person or a part of the body] Become progressively weaker and more emaciated:

• [Archaic] Make progressively weaker and more emaciated

To destroy or consume gradually

• Wear away

[Literary] Devastate or ruin (a place)

[North American; slang] Kill or severely injure (someone)

Bitch has a 28-inch waist.

The last time you had a waist was around 1978.

You’ll have to take in the waist on that skirt.

I love the high waist on this jacket.

Long about 1875, the shirtwaist appeared for women, a bodice shirt that opened up down the front with buttons…just like man’s.

The waist of the violin allows the bow to move freely across the strings without bumping into the body.

The waist deck is the middle deck, the working area of the deck where one always sees the sailors bustling about in the movies.

Luckily for you, plants produce oxygen as a waste product.

It was a solitary patch of waste ground.

She hates to see good food go to waste.

Waste-to-energy plants burn municipal garbage or trash to produce steam in a boiler and generate electricity.

Although deserts appear to be vast wastelands, some have the resources to keep you alive.

Regulations forced mining companies to utilize waste products of the mining process, and they discovered another income source.

Can you throw out that waste for me?

Recycling is a way to salvage waste products.

Global food loss and waste amounts to between one-third and one-half of all food produced.
“Heat … should be classified as a waste product because it is a by-product of metabolic activity and must be eliminated to avoid harmful elevation of body temperatures in warm-blooded animals” (Britannica Kids).

Noun:
It’s a waste of time trying to argue with him.

They had learned to avoid waste.

He was pale and weak from waste of blood.

Eliminating bodily waste is easiest with a bathroom.

That company is producing hazardous industrial wastes.

Well, kids, we’re going to the icy wastes of the Antarctic.

The project was a waste of material, money, time, and energy.

“What a waste of an opportunity,” she said, shaking her head sadly.

The forest fire left a blackened waste.

If a life-tenant fails to maintain the estate, physically or financially, it is considered permissive waste.

Verb, intransitive:
Waste not, want not.

She was visibly wasting away.

It was a wasting disease that took her.

The years were wasting away, as Tom waited for Lissa to come back.

A candle wastes in burning.

The might of England is wasting.

Verb, transitive:
You’re wasting your breath.

Now let’s not be wasting words.

We can’t afford to waste electricity.

I don’t use the car, so why should I waste precious money on it?

Her small talk was wasted on this guest.

We’re wasted in this job.

The symptoms wasted the patients very much.

He seized their cattle and wasted their country.

I saw them waste the guy I worked for.

The waves waste the rock of the shore.