complete and utter waste
1
4.3
- noun
:
pérdida total
- All government R&D funding on new wind turbine designs has been a complete and utter waste of money.
And it was all a complete and utter waste of time.
- And it was all a complete and utter waste of time.
Examples
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Investing in that scheme was a complete and utter waste of money.
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And it was all a complete and utter waste of time.
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Complete and utter waste of space, sir?
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It's it's a complete and utter waste of time because what I think is much more powerful than convincing is conviction.
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Formulas are a complete and utter waste of time.
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The project turned out to be a complete and utter waste of resources.
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Ignoring the issue was a complete and utter waste of everyone's time.
Synonyms
126
2.7
An activity that takes time but does not help you
14
1.7
A thing that is useless and not worth keeping
4
3.9
An activity that uses your time but does not help you
3
2.9
An action that uses effort but achieves nothing useful
1
3.8
An action that uses time and energy but gives no useful result
Something that is very bad and not useful
A thing that has no practical use
Antonyms
How Pointless
Surface Forms
Morphology
complete + and + utter + waste
The meaning is directly derivable from the parts: 'complete' and 'utter' both act as intensifiers meaning total, combined with 'waste' (something pointless), so a learner who knows these words can infer it means something entirely pointless. Although a conventionalized collocation, the intensifier + noun pattern is transparent and cross-linguistically common, making it accessible to a B1 learner.
Etymology
Complete and utter waste puts together the two strong words complete and utter with waste to create the picture of a pile of rubbish where nothing is useful. So it means 'something entirely pointless or without value'.