WASTEFUL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does wasteful mean? 

• WASTEFUL (adjective)
  The adjective WASTEFUL has 3 senses:

1. inefficient in use of time and effort and materials

2. tending to squander and waste

3. laying waste

  Familiarity information: WASTEFUL used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WASTEFUL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Inefficient in use of time and effort and materials

Synonyms:

uneconomical; wasteful

Context example:

uneconomical ebb and flow of power

Similar:

inefficient (not producing desired results; wasteful)

Derivation:

wastefulness (useless or profitless activity; using or expending or consuming thoughtlessly or carelessly)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Tending to squander and waste

Similar:

extravagant; prodigal; profligate; spendthrift (recklessly wasteful)

pound-foolish (unwise in dealing with large sums)

uneconomic; uneconomical (wasteful of resources)

Also:

improvident (not provident; not providing for the future)

Antonym:

thrifty (careful and diligent in the use of resources)

Derivation:

wastefulness (the trait of wasting resources)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Laying waste

Context example:

when wasteful war shall statues overturn

Similar:

destructive (causing destruction or much damage)

Derivation:

wastefulness (useless or profitless activity; using or expending or consuming thoughtlessly or carelessly)

 Context examples 

You learned to cut wasteful spending and to find ways to lower your debt and improve your credit rating.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

Two kings’ sons once upon a time went into the world to seek their fortunes; but they soon fell into a wasteful foolish way of living, so that they could not return home again.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

The winter came and passed without their being called for; the accounts continued perfectly good; and Mrs. Norris, in promoting gaieties for her nieces, assisting their toilets, displaying their accomplishments, and looking about for their future husbands, had so much to do as, in addition to all her own household cares, some interference in those of her sister, and Mrs. Grant's wasteful doings to overlook, left her very little occasion to be occupied in fears for the absent.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

If anyone had told me, then, that all this was a brilliant game, played for the excitement of the moment, for the employment of high spirits, in the thoughtless love of superiority, in a mere wasteful careless course of winning what was worthless to him, and next minute thrown away—I say, if anyone had told me such a lie that night, I wonder in what manner of receiving it my indignation would have found a vent!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

In the same wasteful spirit, they had cooked, I suppose, three times more than we could eat; and one of them, with an empty laugh, threw what was left into the fire, which blazed and roared again over this unusual fuel.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

The family was at one time among the richest in England, and the estates extended over the borders into Berkshire in the north, and Hampshire in the west. In the last century, however, four successive heirs were of a dissolute and wasteful disposition, and the family ruin was eventually completed by a gambler in the days of the Regency.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"Let's get out," whispered Jordan, after a somehow wasteful and inappropriate half hour. "This is much too polite for me."

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)