Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Marked by or inclined to waste; extravagant.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Destructive; devastating; wasting.
- Producing or involving waste; occasioning serious loss or damage; ruinous.
- Extravagant or lavish; profuse to excess; prodigal; squandering: as, a wasteful person.
- Uninhabited; desolate; waste.
- Synonyms and
- Thriftless, unthrifty.
- Lavish, Profuse, etc. See extravagant.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Full of waste; destructive to property; ruinous.
- adj. Expending, or tending to expend, property, or that which is valuable, in a needless or useless manner; lavish; prodigal.
- adj. obsolete Waste; desolate; unoccupied; untilled.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. laying waste
- adj. tending to squander and waste
- adj. inefficient in use of time and effort and materials
Etymologies
- From waste + -ful. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Union representatives say the city has yet to do enough to cut what they call wasteful contracts with vendors and find other efficiencies.”
The Wall Street Journal: Michigan Sizes Up Taking Over Flint
“President Obama also faces other challenges from House Republicans, led by the incoming House Speaker John Boehner, who have vowed to cut what they call wasteful government spending.”
Voice of America: Obama Faces Political Challenges Back in Washington
“Where they differ is on what they define as wasteful spending.”
“Republicans are seizing on what they characterize as wasteful stimulus spending.”
“TODD (voice-over): At the core of what Republicans say is wrong with the president's bill -- what they call wasteful spending, like $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts or $335 million for education programs to prevent HIV/AIDS or sexually transmitted diseases.”
“Plus, Republican leaders railing against what they call the wasteful budget bill.”
“That he is -- has had a agreement with climate change and what he calls wasteful spending.”
“McCain says he can achieve the goal by cutting what he calls wasteful government spending.”
“But one of the things that John McCain did here at the town hall meeting was really rail against what he thinks is a big problem for Republicans, at least the genesis of a problem for Republicans, and that is what he calls wasteful spending in Washington.”
“But some are outraged over what they call wasteful spending in a new transportation bill.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘wasteful’.
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1100
abound, technology, branch of knowled..., prognosticate, automaton, matron, an older married ..., realm, special field of ..., kingdom, annals, historical records and 981 more...
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Excessive
profusely, abundantly, lavish, extravagant, wasteful, exuberant
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Unfortunately Necessary Words
Words we have to use all the time, but that doesn't mean they sound good. In fact, they kind of suck. See also this list.
milk, cheese, neck, teeth, moist, dry, skin, head, feet, mouth, frankly, hair and 97 more...
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my dictionary
able, abnormally, abroad, absent, abstract, acceptable, acceptance, access, accessible, accession, according to, account and 4551 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for wasteful.
chained_bear Amazing that this word hasn't been listed before today. Here's a definition/anecdote:
"The cod stocks continued to decline. In 1984, the government introduced quotas on species per vessel per season. This was a controversial and often wasteful system. A groundfish hauled up from fifty fathoms is killed by the change in pressure. But if it is a cod and the cod quota has been used up, it is thrown overboard. Or if the price of cod is low that week and cod happen to come in the haddock or plaice net, the fishermen will throw them overboard because they do not want to use up their cod quota when they are not getting a good price."
—Mark Kurlansky, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World (New York: Penguin, 1997), 172 Jul 16, 2009