time-eaten

English

Adjective

time-eaten (not comparable)

1. (figurative, literary, dated, obsolete) Of an object, aged by the passage of time; ancient; dilapidated.
   • 1841, George William Lovell (contributor), The Trustee. By the Author of the Tragedy of “The Provost of Bruges,” Etc. [G. W. Lovell.], page 169:

     At length, he paused before a massive building of time-eaten stone, and, turning abruptly to the knight, exclaimed,

   • 1835, Edgar Allen Poe, Southern Literary Messenger, Volume 2, page 552:

     To heaven with that ungodly gloom! / Time-eaten towers that tremble not!

   • 1910, James Augustus Henry Murray (editor), A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles - Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by the Philological Society · Volume 8, Part 2, page 653:

     The Time-eaten names of the Consuls in that Monumentum Ancyranum above-mentioned, as riddled out by T.L.

   • 2004, China Miéville, Iron Council:

     The low rust skyline of a time-eaten iron town.