Wastage

[f. WASTE v. + -AGE.]

  1.  a. Loss or diminution by use, decay, leakage or the like.

1756.  P. Browne, Jamaica (1789), 23. His goods must be shipped on board of some drover, where they seldom fail paying the usual tributes of pilferage and wastage.

1796.  Ann. Reg., Projects, 436. The allowance from a pound to a pound and half for wastage.

1800.  Asiatic Ann. Reg., Misc. Tracts, 203/1. The allowance for the wastage in the drying is rendered perfectly arbitrary.

1852.  Morfit, Tanning & Currying (1853), 325. The loss and wastage upon hides, from hair, flesh, &c., may be estimated at from 12 to 15 per cent.

1861.  Smiles, Engineers, II. 196. The lightermen claimed as their right the perquisites of ‘wastage’ and ‘leakage.’

1904.  Times, 24 Aug., 6/1. The scheme for reinforcement is prepared for a far heavier wastage than has as yet taken place.

  b.  The action of spending uselessly or using wastefully; loss incurred by wastefulness.

1885.  H. C. McCook, Tenants of Old Farm, 118. A noble German lady found that despite her best endeavor there was a vast wastage in her household.

1889.  Lew. Wallace, in Harper’s Mag., Jan., 178/2.

1906.  Daily Chron., 8 May, 6/6. It is doubtful if anywhere in the world there is a greater wastage of coal than in Bombay.

  c.  The action of laying (land) waste.

1911.  Webster.

  2.  The product of wear or decay, waste.

1898.  Blackw. Mag., Oct., 538/1. One of eight principal glaciers that bear away the icy wastage of Mount Kazbek.

  3.  Sc. A ruined or deserted place; also, a waste piece of ground.

1823.  Galt, R. Gilhaize, xx. Carsewell’s family has gone all to drift, and his house become a wastage. Ibid. (1830), Lawrie T., III. x. The settlement … was plainly ordained to be soon a wastage; for the houses received no repair, [etc.].

1832.  Fraser’s Mag., V. 694. Their grand theatre became a wastage.

1881.  Mem. G. Thomson, ix. 125. A row of houses on either side,—the houses not quite attached to each other, but having a wastage between.