decrepitude
/dəˈkɹɛpɪˌtuːd/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.79 in modern English
17
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
3
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "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?"
- "Being a trifle precipitate in his entry, he trod on a bottle, and was instantly extinguished by a Japanese screen, which appeared to collapse on him out of pure decrepitude."
- "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."
- "He recalled that when he accompanied Nixon to Peking in February, 1972, he had been struck by Mao's decrepitude and Chou's failing health."
- "Having slapped into middle age, where thoughts of one’s general infallibility are tempered by the realisation that those creaky, achy complaints are signs of certain decrepitude, I have decided to ward against further gravitational decline by hauling my saggy, sorry self to the gym."
Etymology
From Middle French décrépitude, from Old French, from Latin dēcrepitūdō (“decrepitude”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: décrépitude, -, dēcrepitūdō
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /dəˈkɹɛpɪˌtuːd/
- British English: /dɪˈkɹɛpɪtʃuːd/