Emily Dickinson Lexicon

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. – Milton.
2. Consumption; loss; useless expense; any loss or destruction which is neither necessary nor promotive of 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. – L. Beecher.
3. A desolate or uncultivated country. The plains of Arabia are mostly a wide waste.
4. Land untitled, though capable of tillage; as, the wastes in England.
5. Ground, space, or place unoccupied; as, the ethereal waste. In the dead waste and middle of the night. – Shak.
6. Region ruined and deserted. All the leafy nation sinks at last, / And Vulcan rides in triumph o'er the waste. – Dryden.
7. Mischief; destruction. He will never, I think, in the way of waste, attempt in again. – Shak.
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. – Blackstone.