adj, noun, verb ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   Gradual deterioration or wasting away. countable, uncountable

   "muscular wastings"

2. 2
   a decrease in size of an organ caused by disease or disuse wordnet
3. 3
   The act by which something is laid waste; destruction. countable, uncountable
4. 4
   any general reduction in vitality and strength of body and mind resulting from a debilitating chronic disease wordnet

Verb

1. 1
   present participle and gerund of waste form-of, gerund, participle, present

Adjective

1. 1
   Causing a waste, or wasting away; causing pronounced loss of body mass. not-comparable

Synonyms

All synonyms

atrophycachexiadecayabscessagingague

Antonyms

All antonyms

conservation

Example

More examples

"His parents' view was that he was wasting his earnings on a silly girl."

Related phrases

candle-wastingcerebral salt-wasting syndromechronic wasting diseasemass wastingsea star wasting diseasesea-star wasting diseaseseastar wasting diseasestarfish wasting diseasewasting diseasewasting investmentwasting palsywasting sickness

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.