dilapidated
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
- nondilapidated adjective
- undilapidated adjective
Etymology
Origin of dilapidated
First recorded in 1800–10; dilapidate + -ed 2
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.
Beneath moss-covered cinder blocks, dilapidated stone markers, and a handful of headstones, more than 200 children who died in state custody between the 1870s and 1930s are buried.
From Slate • Mar. 30, 2026
He justified this view by citing a dysfunctional banking system, a highly unstable currency, the absence of the rule of law guaranteeing private property, the failure of the centrally planned economy, and "completely dilapidated" infrastructure.
From Barron's • Mar. 21, 2026
In 2015, he transformed the dilapidated Tropicana lido in Weston-super-Mare, which he had visited as a child, into the subversive tourist attraction Dismaland.
From BBC • Mar. 18, 2026
If he really cares about the latter, he wouldn’t bar tenants in the city’s dilapidated public housing from airing complaints at his hearings on “rental ripoffs,” as the New York Post reported this week.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 18, 2026
The AEC Personnel Security Board hearing into J. Robert Oppenheimer’s security clearance convened on April 12, 1954, in the agency’s dilapidated headquarters, a temporary building on Washington’s National Mall left: over from wartime.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
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.
