wasteful

1. 1.

   inefficient in use of time and effort and materials

   “a clumsy and wasteful process”

   “wasteful duplication of effort”

   “uneconomical ebb and flow of power”

   Synonymsuneconomical

   Similarinefficient
2. 2.

   tending to squander and waste

   Antonymsthrifty

   Similarextravagantpound-foolishuneconomical
3. 3.

   laying waste

   “when wasteful war shall statues overturn”

   Similardestructive

Other forms of wasteful

comparative

wastefuller·

superlative

wastefullest·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about wasteful

What does wasteful mean?

wasteful means "inefficient in use of time and effort and materials". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in wasteful?

wasteful has 2 syllables: wa-steful. The stress falls on "wa". In IPA it is /ˈweɪstfəl/.

What is another word for wasteful?

Close synonyms include uneconomical. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

What is the opposite of wasteful?

The recorded antonyms are thrifty.

Is wasteful a common word?

wasteful is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.