waste away

English

Pronunciation

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Verb

waste away (third-person singular simple present wastes away, present participle wasting away, simple past and past participle wasted away)

1. (idiomatic) To lose energy and/or become weak and feeble.

   She watched him waste away from lack of food or exercise.

   • 2020 April, Elizabeth Kolbert, “Why we won't avoid a climate catastrophe[1]”, in National Geographic:

     The perennial Arctic ice cap—the sea ice that persists through winter and summer—is wasting away. Over the past half century it has shrunk by more than a million square miles

Synonyms

• pine away

Translations

lose energy

• Dutch: wegkwijnen (nl)
• Finnish: kuihtua (fi), riutua (fi)
• French: dépérir (fr)
• Greek:

  Ancient: μαραίνομαι (maraínomai)

• Japanese: やせ衰える (yaseotoroeru)
• Latin: tābeō, tabescō
• Maori: ngongo, horokiwa
• Old English: dwīnan
• Portuguese: definhar (pt)
• Russian: ча́хнуть (ru) impf (čáxnutʹ), зача́хнуть (ru) pf (začáxnutʹ), истоща́ться (ru) impf (istoščátʹsja), истощи́ться (ru) pf (istoščítʹsja)
• Sanskrit: क्षीयते (kṣīyate)