atrophied
Americanadjective
Other Word Forms
- nonatrophied adjective
- unatrophied adjective
Etymology
Origin of atrophied
Explanation
Describe something as atrophied if it's shrunken or made smaller and weaker because of illness. If you've ever had a broken arm, you know that after months inside a cast your muscles become somewhat atrophied. Medically, when a body part is atrophied, it's started to waste away. Arms and legs can become atrophied from injury or disuse, and even internal organs can be atrophied when they're affected by disease. People who don't have enough food to eat eventually develop atrophied bodies, diminished by lack of nutrition. The Greek root is atrophia, "a wasting away," from a, "not," and trophe, "nourishment."
Vocabulary lists containing atrophied
A Wrinkle in Time
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As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow
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Swann's Way
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Global trade boomed and the U.S. economy led the growth, even as U.S. shipbuilding atrophied and the Navy dropped from 7,000 ships at the close of World War II to around 300 today.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 11, 2026
The pandemic, for all its lessons, quietly atrophied some of our neighboring muscles, and many of us are still figuring out how to use them again.
From Salon • Jan. 19, 2026
“Although his boss had to pretend to embrace the family-friendly nature of the town whose newspaper he ran,” Roman observes, “privately he was a man with a heart as atrophied as his calf muscles.”
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 18, 2024
Social skills and conversational ease have stiffened and atrophied.
From New York Times • May 14, 2024
“Our muscles have surely atrophied these past weeks.”
From "Between Shades of Gray" by Ruta Sepetys
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
