disuse
Americannoun
verb (used with object)
noun
Etymology
Origin of disuse
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
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
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
The church fell into disuse in the 1950s and was converted into a house in the early 2000s.
From BBC ● Apr. 24, 2024
Its back room, once a gathering place for the miners and their families who populated the town a generation ago, has been locked up for many years, fallen to disuse.
From New York Times ● Apr. 4, 2024
It fell into disuse after Congress granted an amnesty to most ex-rebels in 1872.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 4, 2024
"Lady Stark," he said, in a voice hoarse with disuse.
From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
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
Hundreds of British soldiers took part in what the army called "one of the most ambitious military exercises in a generation" in the disused platforms of Charing Cross Underground station.
From BBC ● May 24, 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
Capricorn’s house was a large, bulky building, which might once have been the village hall, a disused monastery, or a school.
From "Inkheart" by Cornelia Funke
Oh the general shamefulness of disusing the feet God had given me.
From The Quality of Mercy by Howells, William Dean
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)
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)
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
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.
