caducity

American  

[kuh-doo-si-tee, -dyoo-] / kəˈdu sɪ ti, -ˈdju- /

noun

1. Archaic. the infirmity or weakness of old age; senility.

2. Literary. the quality of being perishable or transitory.

   the caducity of life.

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caducity British  

/ kəˈdjuːsɪtɪ /

noun

1. perishableness

2. senility

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Etymology

Origin of caducity

First recorded in 1760–70; from French caducité, equivalent to caduc caducous + -ité -ity

Example Sentences

Apodeictic, muliebrity, mansuetude, even caducity, caliginosity, nitid, agrestic, roborant or vilipend have Latin or Greek roots that are very familiar to me and most high school graduates.

From Time Magazine Archive

Don't believe that I am either begging praise by the stale artifice of' hoping to be contradicted; or that I think there is any occasion to make you discover my caducity.

From The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 4 by Walpole, Horace

Let us deduct even from old age the years of infancy, the years of caducity, and the years of sleep,—alas! what remaineth of our many and our energetic days?

From Curiosities of Medical Experience by Millingen, J. G. (John Gideon)

It was a new building three stories high, and it was already falling to pieces, owing to work which must have been exceptionally dishonest to give so swiftly the effect of caducity.

From Sinister Street, vol. 2 by MacKenzie, Compton

I do not speak of the ordinary caducity of language, in virtue of which every effusion of the human spirit is lodged in a body of death.

From Milton by Pattison, Mark