Library / English Dictionary

WASTING

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A decrease in size of an organ caused by disease or disuse

Synonyms:

atrophy; wasting; wasting away

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Hypernyms ("wasting" is a kind of...):

symptom ((medicine) any sensation or change in bodily function that is experienced by a patient and is associated with a particular disease)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "wasting"):

amyotrophia; amyotrophy (progressive wasting of muscle tissues)

tabes (wasting of the body during a chronic disease)

kraurosis (atrophy and shriveling of the skin or mucous membrane)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Any general reduction in vitality and strength of body and mind resulting from a debilitating chronic disease

Synonyms:

cachexia; cachexy; wasting

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Hypernyms ("wasting" is a kind of...):

debility; feebleness; frailness; frailty; infirmity; valetudinarianism (the state of being weak in health or body (especially from old age))

Derivation:

waste (cause to grow thin or weak)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

-ing form of the verb waste

Credits

 Context examples: 

The nerve growth factor also protects nerve cells from age-related shrinkage and wasting.

(Exercise May Help Seniors with Word, Memory Problems, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

It is characterized by muscle wasting and hypotonia, cataracts, heart conduction defects and endocrinopathies.

(Myotonic Dystrophy, NCI Thesaurus)

This agent may be used for testosterone replacement therapy in hypogonadal men, in HIV-wasting syndrome, and in other conditions in order to increase nitrogen retention and fat-free muscle mass.

(Nandrolone, NCI Thesaurus)

We are wasting time most abominably.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

"Then let us come at once," I cried, "we are wasting the precious, precious time!"

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

SIR [it ran],—I can assure you that you are wasting your time in dogging my movements.

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

But in the detail which he gave you of them he could not sum up the hours and months of misery which I endured wasting in impotent passions.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Symptoms include muscle weakness, wasting, twitching, trouble swallowing, and slowly becoming paralyzed.

(Motor neuron disease, NCI Dictionary)

Mimicking testosterone's action, this agent may increase lean body mass, thereby ameliorating muscle wasting in the hypermetabolic state of cancer cachexia.

(Enobosarm, NCI Thesaurus)

Virus infections are associated with malignancies and some other diseases such as wasting, and osteopetrosis.

(Alpharetrovirus, NCI Thesaurus)