disuse

American  

[dis-yoos, dis-yooz] / dɪsˈjus, dɪsˈjuz /

noun

1. discontinuance of use or practice.

   Traditional customs are falling into disuse.

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verb (used with object)

disused, disusing

1. to cease to use.

disuse British  

/ dɪsˈjuːs /

noun

1. the condition of being unused; neglect (often in the phrases in or into disuse )

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Etymology

Origin of disuse

1375–1425; late Middle English. See dis- ¹, use

Explanation

Use the noun disuse to describe a condition of not being used. After years of disuse, you won't be surprised when your dad's motorcycle doesn't start. The word disuse implies at least a bit of neglect, and it can also mean that something has become obsolete or old-fashioned: "Typewriters fell into disuse after personal computers became available." You'll often find the word used in the graceful phrase "fall into disuse." The word comes from a Latin root, dis, which means "lack of," added to the word use, and it's been around since about 1400.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

disuse disused disusing

After a brief resurgence during the Civil War, when it was used as a military route, the road fell into disuse.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026

Since its closure along with the rail works in 1986, it fell into disuse and disrepair.

From BBC ● Aug. 24, 2024

This is why the Spanish, who arrived in the 1500s and set out to control the people by converting them to Catholicism, banned the cultivation and possession of the crop, which fell into disuse.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 25, 2024

The body’s sensors that on Earth raise our blood pressure when we stand up from lying down, so that we don’t faint, grow lazy with disuse.

From New York Times ● Nov. 12, 2023

Its voice was low, and slow, and rough with disuse.

From "Impossible Creatures" by Katherine Rundell

The museum shut its previous London Wall site in December 2022 as part of a £437m project to move into the vast disused Victorian market building.

From BBC ● Jun. 18, 2026

Ries, the bankruptcy trustee, said offices in Texas were disused and decrepit—his foot went through the floor when he visited one location around two months after McClain’s death.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 7, 2026

Around 40 disused shipping containers are being repurposed into two-bedroom homes, with a kitchen and a bathroom.

From BBC ● May 22, 2026

In a lot behind a disused West Virginia gas station at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains, Roy Funkhouser is surrounded by about a dozen beekeepers and countless buzzing bees.

From Barron's ● May 19, 2026

I’ve done some of what I call my own work as well, although hesitantly: my hands are out of practice, my eyes disused.

From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood

Of the asylums entirely disusing restraint, in some of them, as we have stated, the patients have been found tranquil and comfortable, and in others they have been unusually excited and disturbed.

From Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles by Tuke, Daniel Hack

But no mere sentimental or capricious dislike to the pig, on the part of any number of persons, could now procure an enactment for disusing that animal.

From Moral Science; a Compendium of Ethics by Bain, Alexander

What a hushing of voices and cleansing of wits and disusing of oaths was there after my little lady came to our rough Habitation!

From Heralds of Empire Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade by Laut, Agnes C. (Agnes Christina)

The practice still continued in England of disusing tillage and throwing the land into enclosures, for the sake of pasture.

From The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. From Elizabeth to James I. by Hume, David

From an internal desire on the part of the creature disusing it, to be quit of an organ which it finds troublesome.

From Life and Habit by Streatfeild, R. A. (Richard Alexander)