taedium vitae
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See also: tædium vitæ
English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Borrowed from Latin taedium (“boredom”) + vītae (“of life”).
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]taedium vitae (uncountable)
- Profound ennui or weariness of one's life.
- 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition 1, page 390:
- Hence it proceeds many times that they are weary of their lives, and feral thoughts to offer violence to their own persons come into their minds; tædium vitæ is a common symptom […]
- 1922, Isaac Goldberg, Brazilian Literature, New York: A.A. Knopf, page 154:
- He was haunted, it seems, by the symbol of a Prometheus wearied of his immortality of anguish,— by the tedium vitae.
- 1957, Lawrence Durrell, Justine:
- From time to time one of Georges' numerous girls strays into my net by calling at the flat when he is not there, and the incident serves for a while to sharpen my taedium vitae.
Related terms
[edit]Further reading
[edit]- “taedium vitae”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.