Word.ws English Dictionary

squandering

squandering is the present participle and gerund of squander.

Meaning of squander

Verb

squander (third-person singular simple present squanders, present participle squandering, simple past and past participle squandered)

  1. (transitive) To waste, lavish, splurge; to spend lavishly or profusely; to dissipate.
    • .
    Synonyms:
    waste, lavish, splurge, slather, throw away, make ducks and drakes of, play ducks and drakes with, blow
    Antonyms:
    conserve, hoard, save
  2. (obsolete, transitive) To scatter; to disperse.
    • […]our ſquander’d Troops he rallies:[…]1681, John Dryden, The Spanish Fryar: Or, the Double Discovery. […], London: […] Richard Tonson and Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, Act I, page 2
  3. (obsolete, transitive) To wander at random; to scatter.
    • […]The Wiſe-mans folly is anathomiz’d / Euen by ſquandring glances of the foole.c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...

Noun

squandering (countable and uncountable, plural squanderings)

  1. The act by which something is squandered; wastage.
    • […] the squanderings and mismanagings of former Governments […]1812, William Thomson (ed.), The Chartist Circular (page 385)

Forms of squandering

pluralsquanderings

Questions about squandering

What does squandering mean?
Squandering means the act by which something is squandered; wastage.
What is squandering the present participle and gerund of?
Squandering is the present participle and gerund of squander.
What part of speech is squandering?
Squandering is a noun.
What is the plural of squandering?
The plural of squandering is squanderings.

Words near squandering in the dictionary

  1. squanderer
  2. squanderers
  3. squanderest
  4. squandereth
  5. Squandergate
  6. squandering
  7. squanderingly
  8. squanderings
  9. squanderlust
  10. squandermania
  11. squandermaniac

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: squandering (page history and authors); squander (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “squandering.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/squandering. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.