To consume or destroy (a person or living thing, his body, strength) by decay or disease; to cause to pine, emaciate, enfeeble; to undermine the…

transitive. To cause to pine or waste away; to torture, famish, waste. (Often in past participle; perhaps intransitive.)

transitive. To exhaust or waste (a person, animal, etc.) with physical or emotional suffering, esp. with hunger, disease, or grief; to cause to…

transferred. To wear away or destroy gradually, as if by eating or gnawing away the texture. Said of diseases, etc.

transitive. To corrupt or contaminate morally or physically; to taint; to infect. Now rare.

transitive. To cause (the body, flesh, etc.) to grow thinner or waste away, esp. by fasting. Obsolete.

transitive. = waste, v. in various senses; to lay waste; to use up, exhaust; to render emaciated or feeble; to spend wastefully.

transitive. To waste away, consume; to emaciate; †to melt down (obsolete).

transitive. To make tabid or consumptive; = tabefy, v. 1.

spec. in Old Physiol. To reduce (the solids of the body) to a liquid consistence; to cause to waste away (cf. colliquation, n. 3b).

Pathology. To erode beneath the surface.