effete
/ɪˈfit/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 2.10 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Decadent, weak through self-indulgence.
adj
Example Sentences
- "Nature is not effœte, as he saith, or so lavish, to bestow all her gifts upon an age, but hath reserved some for posterity, to shew her power, that she is still the same, and not old or consumed."
- "Amid the effete monarchies and princedoms of feudal Europe, morally and materially exhausted by the Thirty Years' War, the only hope of resistance to France lay in the little Republic of merchants, Holland."
- "They used rock'n'roll as a weapon against itself. With all instruments but guitar, bass, drums, and voice written off as effete, as elitist accoutrements of a professionalist cult of technique, it was music best suited to anger and frustration, […]"
- "A spirit of national masochism prevails, encouraged by an effete core of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals (Spiro Agnew, October 1969)"
- "Most writers merely produce effete works on paper, you might say, but Kerouac went and wrestled with the tree itself."
- "For the President, the EU is an essentially effete project – a civilian power that likes to see itself as human rights based and collegiate, but with no hard power of its own."
Etymology
Origin
- Source language: Latin
Word Breakdown
- Root: effētus
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ɪˈfit/
- British English: /ɪˈfiːt/