[-NESS.]
1. The quality of being wasteful; prodigality in expenditure; want of economy.
1551. T. Wilson, Logic, II. I viij b. Liberalitie is a vertue. Therfore liberalitie maie not be called wastefulnes.
1603. Holland, Plutarch’s Mor., 212. Even so be these wretches more odious … who by their miserable parsimonie … doe mischiefe, than those who by their riot and wastfulnesse be hurtfull to a common-weale.
a. 1768. Secker, Serm. (1770), III. 251. Wastefulness also, and even mere Negligence, approach to the same Sin.
1839. Dickens, Nickleby, xxxiv. I really cannot afford to encourage him in all his wastefulness.
1884. Harper’s Mag., Oct., 781/2. A lamentable wastefulness of the public funds.
† 2. The state of being waste or void. Obs. rare.
1674. N. Fairfax, Bulk & Selv., 195. Having taken away altogether that boundless wastfulness beyond the world, we are no whit careful, about the light or darkness of it.
