Meaning

noun any materials unused and rejected as worthless or unwanted

noun useless or profitless activity; using or expending or consuming thoughtlessly or carelessly

noun the trait of wasting resources

originFrom Middle English wasten (“to waste, lay waste”), from Anglo-Norman, Old Northern French waster (“to waste, devastate”) (compare also the variant gaster and French gâter from a related Old French word); the Anglo-Norman form waster was either from Frankish *wōstijan (“to waste”), from Proto-Indo-European *wāsto- (“empty, wasted”), or alternatively from Latin vastāre and influenced by the…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0