disuse

American  

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

noun

1. discontinuance of use or practice.

   Traditional customs are falling into disuse.

---

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 )

---

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

"Any rare changes we do make are usually as a result of changes made by either authoritative bodies or when a name falls into disuse and another name comes into use," it said.

From BBC ● May 13, 2026

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

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

Congress did remove that disability from most Confederates in 1872, and the provision fell into disuse.

From Seattle Times ● Dec. 28, 2023

Char’s answer: “My tongue may wither from disuse here, but at least I shan’t lose words entirely while I still can write to you.”

From "Ella Enchanted" by Gail Carson Levine

Last month, the authorities announced plans to convert disused state buildings into prisons.

From Barron's ● Aug. 2, 2026

In dirty t-shirts and flimsy sandals, hundreds of unaccompanied minors slept outdoors in a disused industrial park in Ceuta after swimming to the Spanish territory from Morocco, AFP saw Saturday.

From Barron's ● Aug. 1, 2026

The long-vacant site has become a magnet for so-called urban explorers, who prowl abandoned malls, hospitals, power plants, amusement parks, factories and any other disused structure they can breach.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 7, 2026

The British Army covertly took over a disused part of the London Underground in central London to plan a Nato military response to possible future Russian attacks.

From BBC ● May 24, 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

And finally, it is now near two hundred years since the Society of Quakers denied the authority of the rite altogether, and gave good reasons for disusing it.

From Transcendentalism in New England A History by Octavius Brooks Frothingham

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 Alexander Bain

But how this can be avoided entirely, I know not, but by disusing their goods and letting them perish in their hands.

From Familiar Letters of John Adams and His Wife Abigail Adams During the Revolution with a Memoir of Mrs. Adams by Abigail Adams

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 David Hume

Oh the general shamefulness of disusing the feet God had given me.

From The Quality of Mercy by William Dean Howells