Idiom
waste not, want not
Meaning
If one is not wasteful then one will not be in need.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“My grandmother always says, waste not, want not.”
“She saves every scrap of food for later because she believes that if you waste not, you want not.”
“By repairing his old tools instead of buying new ones, he lived by the principle that if you waste not, you want not.”
Examples
simple
“My grandmother always says, waste not, want not.”
contextual
“She saves every scrap of food for later because she believes that if you waste not, you want not.”
complex
“By repairing his old tools instead of buying new ones, he lived by the principle that if you waste not, you want not.”
Origin
Attested from 1772; a tightened form of the older proverb 'wilful waste makes woeful want'.
Key words
Related idioms
- Level
- B1 · Intermediate
- Updated