The Germanic word also existed in Old English as westan "to lay waste, ravage." Spanish gastar, Italian guastare also are from Germanic. Meaning "to lose strength or health; pine; weaken" is attested from c. 1300; the sense of "squander, spend or consume uselessly" is first recorded mid-14c.; meaning "to kill" is from 1964. Waste not, want not attested from 1778.
c. 1600, "scattered, wasted, frittered away," past-participle adjective from dissipate (v.). By 1744 as "characterized by extravagant, excessive, or dissolute pleasures, intemperate."
"meager, wasted, raw-boned," 1824, apparently a dialectal variant of scranny "lean, thin" (1820), which is of uncertain origin but probably from a Scandinavian source, perhaps Old Norse skrælna "to shrivel." Compare scrannel. Related: Scrawniness.
early 13c., scraggi, "rough, jagged" (figurative); 1570s, of landscape, "rough, rugged, stumpy;" 1610s, of persons or animals, "gaunt and wasted, lean, thin, bony;" see scrag (n.) + -y (2), and compare scroggy, scraggly, scrawny. In the landscape sense perhaps via scrag in the obsolete sense of "stump of a tree, rough projection from a trunk" (1560s), which had various spellings. In Scottish and Northern English, scranky "lean, slender, scraggy" (18c.). Related: Scraggily; scragginess.
late 14c., desolacioun, "sorrow, grief, personal affliction;" c. 1400, "action of laying waste, destruction or expulsion of inhabitants;" from Old French desolacion (12c.) "desolation, devastation, hopelessness, despair" and directly from Church Latin desolationem (nominative desolatio), noun of action from past-participle stem of desolare "leave alone, desert," from de- "completely" (see de-) + solare "make lonely," from solus "alone" (see sole (adj.)).
Meaning "condition of being ruined or wasted, destruction" is from early 15c. Sense of "a desolated place, a devastated or lifeless region" is from 1610s.
