Noah Webster
Wasting
WASTING, participle present tense
1. Lavishing prodigally; expending or consuming without use; diminishing by slow dissipation; desolating; laying waste.
WASTING and relentless war has made ravages, with but few and short intermissions, from the days of the tyrant Nimrod down to the Nimrod of our own age.
2. adjective Diminishing by dissipation or by great destruction; as a wasting disease.