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Waster   Listen
noun
Waster  n.  
1.
One who, or that which, wastes; one who squanders; one who consumes or expends extravagantly; a spendthrift; a prodigal. "He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster." "Sconces are great wasters of candles."
2.
An imperfection in the wick of a candle, causing it to waste; called also a thief.
3.
A kind of cudgel; also, a blunt-edged sword used as a foil. "Half a dozen of veneys at wasters with a good fellow for a broken head." "Being unable to wield the intellectual arms of reason, they are fain to betake them unto wasters."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Waster" Quotes from Famous Books



... sufficiently interesting to detain the reader, we pass to one in some degree peculiar to Scotland, which may be called a sort of salmon-hunting. This chase, in which the fish is pursued and struck with barbed spears, or a sort of long-shafted trident, called a waster, is much practised at the mouth of the Esk and in the other salmon rivers of Scotland. The sport is followed by day and night, but most commonly in the latter, when the fish are discovered by means of torches, or fire-grates, filled ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... speaking, slightly accentuated perhaps by more trouble than usual. She is fairly well used to such events by now. Yarty himself is angry. His ordinary habits are bound to be upset for a few days; for ever, if Mrs Yarty dies. He is what successful and conceited people call a waster. "There ain't no harm in him," Tony says. "He wuden't hurt a fly. The only thing is, 'er don't du much." I have never seen him actually drunk. He keeps very nearly all his irregular earnings for his own use in a strong locked box upstairs. His house is a ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds

... the son of an artist of Portuguese extraction. The artist was a waster and a wanderer. In his youth he mated with a Marseillaise dancing-girl who had posed as his model. Joses had been the result. The father shortly deserted the mother, who took to the ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant

... dressmaker's bill. Gracious, how Madame LaFayette has gone up in her prices! I believe I'll make my own clothes after this; but the market bills are the worst I don't see how we could have eaten all these things. Mancy must be a dreadful waster, but it isn't fair to blame her; if that's where the trouble is, I ought to have looked after it myself. Hello, Marian, is that you? I didn't hear you come in. Do come here, I'm in the depths ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells

... in our school more thoroughly than any other school to date, because we want you to carry a living picture of all or any part of the body in your mind as a ready painter carries the picture of the face, scenery, beast or any thing he wishes to represent by his brush. He would only be a waster of time and paint and make a daub that would disgust any one who would employ him. We teach you anatomy in all its branches, that you may be able to have and keep a living picture before your mind all the time, so you can see all joints, ligaments, muscles, glands, ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still

... waster; that is, it breaks up the power of attention, as few smokers are satisfied with one cigaret and the mere physical act of lighting a fresh cigaret disturbs the continuity of thought and work. Dr. W. J. Mayo[49] calls attention to the fact that according to his observations research ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk

... allowed, towards the close, to exhibit the well-known ruse or madre characteristics of the French peasant to the extent of more than one not quite white lie; the husband of the heroine is unfaithful, tyrannical as far as he dare be, and a waster of his family's goods before his fortunately rather early death; his pretty young sister, Mariette, is a selfish and spiteful minx; and his paramour (sarcastically named "La Severe") is unchaste, malignant, and dishonest all at once—a combination which ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... again sighed the inspector. "He was a clever fellow, finely educated, and kind-hearted at that! And in society, nobody could touch him! But he was a waster, God rest his soul! I was prepared for anything since he refused to live with Olga Petrovna. Poor thing, a good wife, but a sharp tongue! Stephen!" the inspector called to one of his deputies, "go over to my house this minute, and send Andrew ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various

... the waster, the gambler, the loyal citizen, the slacker, the honest and dishonest—they were all there at the pay window of the Mill. And to each the pay envelope meant a different thing. To big Max the envelope meant ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright

... the snow Divines depart and April comes; Examinations nearer grow After the melting of the snow; The grinder wears a face of woe, The waster smokes and twirls his thumbs; After the melting of the snow Divines depart and ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray

... Osmia, in fact, in view of her small dimensions, collects but a very scanty store of food: a little loaf of pollen and honey, hardly the size of an average pea. Such a ration is insufficient for the Dioxys. I have described her as a waster of food when her larva is established, according to custom, in the cell of the Mason-bee. This description no longer applies; not in the very least. Inadvertently straying to the Osmia's table, the larva has no excuse for turning ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre

... been spread upon the glen since I looked out last night; for over the same wilderness of snow that has met my gaze for a week, I see the steading of Waster Lunny sunk deeper into the waste. The schoolhouse, I suppose, serves similarly as a snowmark for the people at the farm. Unless that is Waster Lunny's grieve foddering the cattle in the snow, not a living thing ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie

... experience of every day still bears witness to their accuracy, force, and soundness. The Proverbs of Solomon are full of wisdom as to the force of industry, and the use and abuse of money: "He that is slothful in work is brother to him that is a great waster." "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise." Poverty, says the preacher, shall come upon the idler, "as one that traveleth, and want as an armed man;" but of the industrious and upright, "the hand of the diligent maketh rich." "the drunkard and the ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon

... to pay for a meal for a handful of people. He was mistaken; that was all, and the incident had no importance, for a few pounds more or less could not matter in the least to a gentleman of his income. Yet he felt guilty of being a waster. He could not accustom himself to the scale of expenditure. Barely in the old days could he have earned in a week the price of the repast consumed now in an hour. The vast apartment was packed with people living at just that rate of expenditure and seeming to think naught ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett

... Katherine answered, "a waster. He said: 'God knows what he'll do next.' He said he'd ordered you out last night and he hadn't had a word from you, but that he'd made up his mind anyway. He was going to have his lawyer this morning and change his will, leaving all his money to the Bedford Foundation, except a little ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp



Words linked to "Waster" :   vandal, undoer, prodigal, destroyer, squanderer, profligate, ruiner, waste, diversionist, iconoclast, wrecker, saboteur, image breaker, uprooter, annihilator, wastrel



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