In unfavourable sense: To spend, consume, employ uselessly or without adequate result. (Now the most… to waste words, to waste breath, †to waste wind…

to waste (one's) breath and variants: to speak without bringing about any worthwhile result; to speak or argue pointlessly. Now frequently in don't wa…

to talk to a brick wall: to engage in a futile effort to persuade, influence, or reason with a resistant or unresponsive interlocutor. Also in…