Waste vs. Waist – What’s the Gist?
Waste and waist are homophones, sounding exactly alike but having different spellings and meanings. If confusion arises between these two words, it is usually with substituting the word waste for waist. Knowing their definitions will help alleviate this potential error.
- Waste is both a noun and a verb.
- Waist is a noun.
How to Use Waste in a Sentence
Waste definition: In its noun function, waste has some layered meanings. Its primary definition is a sparsely settled or uncultivated land. But it also means an instance of wasting away or gradual decay. Furthermore, the word waste means defective or unnecessary material, rubbish, or excrement.
Incidentally, adding an –ed (wasted) turns the noun into a participle, which is a verbal acting as an adjective.
For example:
- Crossing the desert, the truck driver experienced a vast wasteland. (Noun)
- The ill patient’s face looked wane and wasted. (Participle)
- Every day of the week, the large city collected the community’s trash to take to the waste management treatment plant. (Noun)
Waste also functions as a verb, meaning to destroy gradually and progressively, or to cause to shrink or emaciate, or to spend or act carelessly.
For example:
- The wide, open prairies wasted away into developing farmlands. (Past Tense Verb)
- The boys wasted their time playing video games instead of doing chores and schoolwork. (Past Tense Verb)
- She wasted her first adult paycheck on buying new shoes that she didn’t need. (Past Tense Verb)
As you can see, waste has a wide array of meanings.
How to Use Waist in a Sentence
Waist definition: All definitions with the word waist focus on the same idea: the narrowed part of the body between the thorax and the hips. This sense also applies to something that resembles the human waist, like the part of a ship between the poop deck and forecastle or the middle section of the fuselage of a plane.
For example:
- The pair of pants were tight around the waist. (Noun)
- After the flashflood, the water in the basement was waist deep. (Attributive Noun)
- Awaiting direction, the sailors stood in the waist of the ship. (Noun)
By the way, an attributive noun is a noun that modifies another noun and acts as a descriptive adjective.
Additionally, and it probably doesn’t come as any surprise, that a garment which covers the body from the neck to the waistline is called a waist.
For example:
- Getting dressed for the day, the woman donned a waist and a shirt. (Noun)
The word waist is a concrete noun.
Outside Examples of Waste vs. Waist
- Cowart has a history of violating wildlife laws in his home state of Florida and in North Carolina,” Cooley was quoted as saying in the news release. “His most recent wildlife violations in Colorado are considered among the most serious of criminal activity against wildlife, where an animal is killed for its trophy parts and the meat is abandoned to waste.” –The Denver Post
- Dallas County’s involvement with the court program predates Daniel’s first election. Though she has acknowledged the failure of the courts program, she isn’t prepared to throw what’s working out with the bad. And, she argues, a true waste of tax dollars would be to abandon software that is working fine. –The Dallas Morning News
- One recent weekday, Morris took measurements of Bond’s arms, shoulders, waist and legs. Bond flipped through swatches as the two discussed fabric and style options for the cuffs, collar, and belt and pocket openings. –Newsday
- Kim Mulkey gathered her Baylor players for a quick chat before Queen Egbo grabbed the coach around the waist and hoisted her in the air. Call it a “Lady Bear” hug for the fastest coach to 600 wins in Division I history — men or women. –Houston Chronicle
Phrases That Use Waste and Waist
There are some idioms that use the word waste that includes:
A waste of space: Something that is superfluous, unusable, or worthless.
- Opening up the door to the room, the buyers saw an alcove that was a waste of space.
Get wasted: A colloquialism to get inebriated or high.
- The first-year college student went to the party to get wasted.
While there are phrases that use the word waste, there are not for the word waist.
How to Remember These Words
One way to distinguish these two homophones is to look at the second vowel in each word. The final silent letter e in the word waste might be considered unnecessary. Much of waste is just that—not necessary.
In the word waist, the letter i is a slim letter. Most people would likely want a slimmer waist.
For example:
- When she dropped her soda in the movie theatre, the moviegoer bemoaned the waste.
- After changing his diet to a healthier one, he had a noticeably slimmer waist in a few weeks.
Article Summary
Is waste or waist correct? These two words are never interchangeable. Unless you are talking about a narrowed section of something like a person or a boat, it is likely that you want the word waste.
- Waste is a noun or a verb expressing something that is empty or unnecessary, or an act that is careless.
- Waist, on the other hand, is a noun only.