"waste not, want not" meaning in English

See waste not, want not in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Proverb

Audio: En-au-waste not, want not.ogg [Australia]
Head templates: {{head|en|proverb}} waste not, want not
  1. (idiomatic) If one is not wasteful then one will not be in need. Tags: idiomatic Coordinate_terms: a penny saved is a penny earned Translations (Translations): 儉以防匱 (Chinese Mandarin), 俭以防匮 (jiǎnyǐfángkuì) (Chinese Mandarin), säästäväisyys on hyve (Finnish), tout est bon dans le cochon (French), Spare in der Zeit, so hast du in der Not (German), il risparmio è il miglior guadagno (Italian), nie marnuj, a nie będziesz w potrzebie (Polish)

Download JSON data for waste not, want not meaning in English (2.9kB)

{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "proverb"
      },
      "expansion": "waste not, want not",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "proverb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English coordinated pairs",
          "parents": [
            "Coordinated pairs",
            "Terms by etymology"
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          "source": "w"
        },
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        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English negative polarity items",
          "parents": [
            "Negative polarity items",
            "Terms by semantic function"
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          "name": "English proverbs",
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        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
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        }
      ],
      "coordinate_terms": [
        {
          "word": "a penny saved is a penny earned"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1910, Edith Nesbit, chapter 2, in The Magic City",
          "text": "“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.”",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "July 9 2006, Richard Corrigan, “Fish tales”, in Sunday Times, UK, retrieved 2008-07-05",
          "text": "I'm a believer in “waste not, want not”, and we roast our leftover bread, finely sliced and brushed with olive oil, in a low oven.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "If one is not wasteful then one will not be in need."
      ],
      "id": "en-waste_not,_want_not-en-proverb-GpL-BVsF",
      "links": [
        [
          "wasteful",
          "wasteful"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) If one is not wasteful then one will not be in need."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "儉以防匱"
        },
        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "roman": "jiǎnyǐfángkuì",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "俭以防匮"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "säästäväisyys on hyve"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "tout est bon dans le cochon"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "Spare in der Zeit, so hast du in der Not"
        },
        {
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "il risparmio è il miglior guadagno"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "nie marnuj, a nie będziesz w potrzebie"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-waste not, want not.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/8/81/En-au-waste_not%2C_want_not.ogg/En-au-waste_not%2C_want_not.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/En-au-waste_not%2C_want_not.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "waste not, want not"
}
{
  "coordinate_terms": [
    {
      "word": "a penny saved is a penny earned"
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
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        "2": "proverb"
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      "expansion": "waste not, want not",
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  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "proverb",
  "senses": [
    {
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        "English ellipses",
        "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
        "English idioms",
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        "English negative polarity items",
        "English proverbs",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned",
        "Translation table header lacks gloss"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1910, Edith Nesbit, chapter 2, in The Magic City",
          "text": "“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.”",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "July 9 2006, Richard Corrigan, “Fish tales”, in Sunday Times, UK, retrieved 2008-07-05",
          "text": "I'm a believer in “waste not, want not”, and we roast our leftover bread, finely sliced and brushed with olive oil, in a low oven.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "If one is not wasteful then one will not be in need."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "wasteful",
          "wasteful"
        ]
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) If one is not wasteful then one will not be in need."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-waste not, want not.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/8/81/En-au-waste_not%2C_want_not.ogg/En-au-waste_not%2C_want_not.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/En-au-waste_not%2C_want_not.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
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    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "儉以防匱"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "jiǎnyǐfángkuì",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "俭以防匮"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "säästäväisyys on hyve"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "tout est bon dans le cochon"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "Spare in der Zeit, so hast du in der Not"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "il risparmio è il miglior guadagno"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "nie marnuj, a nie będziesz w potrzebie"
    }
  ],
  "word": "waste not, want not"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-03-12 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-03-01 using wiktextract (68773ab and 5f6ddbb). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.