wastes away
Gradually loses substance
To waste away is to gradually lose health, strength, or substance until little remains.
The phrase typically describes physical decline from illness, starvation, or neglect: He wasted away in the hospital over several months.
It can apply to non-living things that slowly deteriorate: The old house wasted away from years of abandonment.
- languishWeaken through suffering
- crumbleFragment gradually
- gauntLean from deprivation
- skin and bonesExtreme thinness, no flesh
- rotOrganic breakdown process
decay · emaciated · wither · skeletal · wane · fades · shrivel · atrophy · corrode · depletion · husk · disintegrate · pine · frail · hollow · feeble · sunken · consumptive
physical vitality and health
wastes awaythrives
Succeeds and grows
flourishes · recovers · fills out · bulks up · builds up
waste, wastes, wasted, wasting, wasteful, wastefully, wastefulness, wastage, wasteland