decrepitude

See also: décrépitude

English

Etymology

From Middle French décrépitude, from Old French, from Latin dēcrepitūdō (“decrepitude”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dɪˈkɹɛpɪtʃuːd/
• IPA^(key): /dəˈkɹɛpɪˌtuːd/

Noun

decrepitude (countable and uncountable, plural decrepitudes)

1. the state of being decrepit or worn out from age or long use
   • 1781, Samuel Johnson, Lives of the Poets:

     There prevailed in his time an opinion, that the world was in its decay, and that we have had the misfortune to be produced in the decrepitude of nature.

   • 1839, Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby:

     This was the probable destination of his sister Kate. His uncle had deceived him, and might he not consign her to some miserable place where her youth and beauty would prove a far greater curse than ugliness and decrepitude?

   • 1952, Norman Lewis, Golden Earth:

     We were encircled by a ghostly decrepitude, roads that led to nowhere, canals holding pools of brilliant, stinking water, a few nat-haunted banyan trees, grotesque with old muscled trunks and bearded roots.

Synonyms

• cobwebbiness, decrepitness, hoariness; see also Thesaurus:oldness

Translations

the state of being decrepit

• Bulgarian: грохналост (bg) f (grohnalost)
• Dutch: aftakeling (nl) f
• German: Abnutzung (de) f, Altersschwäche (de) f, Verfall (de) m
• Italian: decrepità f, decrepitezza f
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Manx: anheiltys m
• Portuguese: decrepitude f
• Russian: дря́хлость (ru) f (drjáxlostʹ)
• Spanish: decrepitud (es) f

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Portuguese

Noun

decrepitude f (usually uncountable, plural decrepitudes)

1. decrepitude (the state of being decrepit)