too good to go to waste
- idiom
:
demasiado bueno para desperdiciarse
- The leftover paint was too good to go to waste, so she gave it to her neighbor.
Examples
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The strawberries were still fresh and too good to go to waste, so I made a pie.
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This food is too good to go to waste!
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His skills are too good to go to waste in a desk job; he should be out in the field.
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The cake was too good to go to waste.
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The leftover pizza was too good to go to waste, so I saved it for lunch.
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Her singing talent is too good to go to waste; she should perform more often.
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The old books in the library are too good to go to waste, and they deserve to be read.
Synonyms
75
4.1
Very useful in a way that is hard to measure
Antonyms
How Valuable
Surface Forms
Morphology
too + good + to + go + to + waste
The phrase's meaning is directly compositional: 'too' + 'good' expresses excessive suitability and the clause 'to go to waste' literally means 'to become wasted', so a learner who knows 'too', 'good', 'go' and 'waste' can infer that something is so good it should not be thrown away. This construction (too + adjective + to + verb phrase) and the idea of something 'going to waste' is common across many languages, making it immediately comprehensible to B1 learners.
Etymology
Too good to go to waste comes from a simple picture: imagine a baker about to throw away fresh bread and someone stopping them because it is too good to put in the waste bin. So it means 'so valuable, useful, or enjoyable that it should not be thrown away'.