Meaning & use
time waste
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountableinformal
an activity or situation that uses time badly and produces no useful result
Grammar: Countable: you can say 'a time waste' or 'time wastes'. It is often used with 'complete' or 'total' for emphasis.
Patterns
- a time waste
- a complete time waste
- something is a time waste
Waiting in that long queue was a complete time waste.
The meeting turned into a time waste because nobody had prepared.
For me, scrolling through social media all evening is just a time waste.
verbtransitiverare
to spend time on something without getting any useful result
Grammar: Transitive: it takes an object, as in 'time waste the afternoon'. However, the more common verb is simply 'waste', as in 'waste time'.
Patterns
- time waste something
- time waste on something
Don't time waste on small details when the deadline is so close.
She felt she had time wasted the whole morning arguing about nothing.
Word forms
| plural | time wastes |
|---|---|
| third person singular | time wastes |
| past tense | time wasted |
| past participle | time wasted |
| -ing form | time wasting |
Common combinations
- a complete time waste
- The whole trip was a complete time waste because the office was closed.
- a total time waste
- That lecture felt like a total time waste.
- avoid a time waste
- Good planning helps you avoid a time waste.
- turn into a time waste
- The discussion turned into a time waste after the main point was lost.
Synonyms and how they differ
- waste of time
- This is the much more common and natural phrase; 'time waste' as a noun sounds informal and is less standard.
- time waster
- A time waster is a person or thing that wastes time; a time waste is the wasted activity itself.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: time waste or waste time?
time waste vs waste time
This is a verb phrase meaning 'to use time badly'. 'Time waste' is a noun phrase for the wasted activity itself, and is much less common.
Practice
That three-hour meeting was a total ___ because we made no decisions.
Choose one answer.
'A total time waste' fits because the sentence needs a countable noun phrase after 'a total'. 'Waste time' is a verb phrase and cannot follow 'a total'. 'Time wasting' is uncountable and would not take 'a'. 'Wasted time' is possible but less idiomatic here.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “time waste”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.