sløses

Sløses is a Danish verb meaning to waste or squander resources, especially time or money. The infinitive form is sløse, and sløses can appear in certain constructions as a passive or fixed-form usage. In contemporary Danish, speakers more often express the idea with synonyms such as spilde (to spill/waste) or kaste penge væk (to throw money away). The sense of sløses encompasses waste resulting from mismanagement, extravagance, or poor planning, and it is commonly found in discussions of personal conduct, business, and public policy.

The word is cognate with related forms in other North Germanic languages, reflecting a shared Germanic heritage. For example, Swedish slösa and Norwegian sløse/sløse convey similar meanings. The precise historical etymology is not always spelled out in everyday dictionaries, but the term is generally tied to a semantic field of waste and misallocation of resources within the language family.

In usage, sløses often appears in contexts analyzing efficiency, budgeting, and resource management. The related noun sløseri denotes wastefulness or mismanagement, including cases of misusing funds, occasionally appearing in discussions about public administration with phrases like sløseri med offentlige midler. While sløses is understood across Danish-speaking communities, more common modern expressions for the same idea include spilde tid and kaste væk penge.

See also: spilde, kaste penge væk, sløseri med offentlige midler.