senescence
/sɪˈnɛ.səns/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.51 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
3
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Ceasing to divide by mitosis because of shortening of telomeres or excessive DNA damage.
Uncountable
noun
Old age; accumulated damage to macromolecules, cells, tissues and organs with the passage of time.
Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "Organized shuffleboard has always filled me with dread. Everything about it suggests infirm senescence and death: it’s like it’s a game played on the skin of a void and the rasp of the sliding puck is the sound of that skin getting abraded away bit by bit."
- "Over the next 150 years the known age of the Earth expanded a millionfold and lost worlds of the past were found to have overflowed with species now gone. The chain stretched, aged, and eventually succumbed to senescence."
- "2018, University of Edinburgh, "Liver Study Offers Insights into Hard-to-treat Diseases" (9 March 2018), Drug Discovery & Development. Tests in mice found that inducing senescence in bile duct cells - mimicking the process seen in human bile duct disease - led to liver scarring and damage of liver function."
Etymology
From senescent + -ence.