wasteness

From Middle English wastnesse; equivalent to waste +‎ -ness.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈweɪstnəs/

wasteness (countable and uncountable, plural wastenesses)

1. (obsolete) The state of being laid waste; desolation.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Zephaniah 1:15:

     That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness,

2. (now rare) The state of being uncultivated; wild, barren.
   • 1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter I, in Rob Roy. […], volume III, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC, page 3:

     Under her rays, the ground over which we passed assumed a more interesting appearance than during the broad day-light, which discovered the extent of its wasteness.

   • 1856, John Ruskin, “Of Mountain Beauty”, in Modern Painters […], volume IV, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC, , § 2:

     […] I cannot find words to express the intense pleasure I have always in first finding myself, after some prolonged stay in England, at the foot of the old tower of Calais church. The large neglect, the noble unsightliness of it; the record of its years written so visibly, yet without sign of weakness or decay; its stern wasteness and gloom, eaten away by the Channel winds, and overgrown with the bitter sea grasses […]

3. (obsolete) A wilderness.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     She of nought affrayd, / Through woods and wastnesse wide him daily sought