waste not, want not
waste not, want not proverb: if one is not wasteful then one will not be in need.
Proverb
waste not, want not
- If one is not wasteful then one will not be in need.
- Besides these, there were some little pleasures in the shape of helping her to vegetable she didn't want, and when it had nearly alighted on her plate, taking it across for his own use, on the plea of waste not, want not.1872, [Thomas Hardy], “VIII. They Dance More Wildly”, in Under the Greenwood Tree: A Rural Painting of the Dutch School, volume I, London: Tinsley Brothers, →OCLC, part I, page 114
- “They take the cocoa-nuts to the town kitchen,” said the captain, “to be made into cocoa-nut ice for the army breakfast; waste not want not, you know.”1910, Edith Nesbit, chapter 2, in The Magic City
Questions about waste not, want not
- What does waste not, want not mean?
- Waste not, want not means if one is not wasteful then one will not be in need.
- What part of speech is waste not, want not?
- Waste not, want not is a proverb.
Words near waste not, want not in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: waste not, want not (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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