1. Paper cast aside as spoiled, superfluous or useless for its original purpose.
1585. Higins, Junius’ Nomencl., 6/2. Segestria,… waste paper, or other stuffe, wherein occupiers wrap their seuerall wares.
1589. Nashe, Anat. Absurd., B ij. [They] pretending forsooth to anatomize abuses,… when as there waste paper beeing wel viewed, seemes fraught with nought els saue dogge daies effects.
1601. Weever, Mirr. Mart., To Wm. Couell A 2. This Poem … so long keeping the corner of my studie, wherein I vse to put waste paper.
1682. Dryden, Medal, Ep. Whigs A 4 b. That so much skill in Hebrew Derivations, may not lie for Wast-paper in the Shop.
1730. Swift, Drapier’s Hill, 12. His famous Letters [are] made waste paper.
1772. Hartford Merc., Suppl. 18 Sept., 4/1. A draft … being laid in the office, as waste-paper, the prisoner Rogers … altered the date, and … carried it to Sir Robert’s as a new draft.
1840. N. Amer. Rev., L. 317. It was then … he [Botta] sold to an apothecary, at the price of waste paper, the last six hundred copies of his ‘History of the American War.’
1853. Mrs. Gaskell, Ruth, xxviii. Will you allow me to send you over my Times? I have generally done with it before twelve o’clock, and after that it is really waste-paper in my house.
1905. R. Bagot, Passport, ii. 8. The securities which Monsignor Lelli held … proved to be little better than waste paper.
b. attrib., as waste-paper price, trade; waste-paper basket, † box, a basket (or box) into which waste paper is thrown.
1859. Geo. Eliot, Adam Bede, xlviii. There was the *waste-paper basket full of scraps.
1880. Miss Broughton, Second Thoughts, II. x. The almanack … was … angrily torn to shreds, and consigned to the waste-paper basket.
1836. F. Mahony, Rel. Father Prout, Songs Horace, v. Wks. (1881), 449. In its October number, just received, and now lying in our *waste-paper box.
1859. D’Israeli’s Cur. Lit., I. 11, note. His noble library was scattered at *waste-paper prices.
1865. Dickens, Mut. Fr., III. i. Half the lump will be waste-paper…. Can you get it at waste-paper price? That’s the question.
1869. W. C. Sandars, trans. Uhland’s Poems, Biog. Mem. 12. The larger portion of the two first editions was eventually disposed of to the *waste-paper trade.
† 2. Blank or unused paper. Obs.
1691. Lond. Gaz., No. 2662/4. Lost…, an Affidavit with the Copy thereof, and several Accompts and Memorandums writ in the Wast-Paper thereof.
