inanition
Americannoun
-
exhaustion resulting from lack of food
-
mental, social, or spiritual weakness or lassitude
Etymology
Origin of inanition
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English, from Late Latin inānitiōn- (stem of inānitiō “emptiness”); inane, -ition
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.
I perceived that I was sickening from excitement and inanition; neither meat nor drink had passed my lips that day, for I had taken no breakfast.
From Literature
There were times in “High Life,” by contrast, when my attention began to wander through space—always a hazard, I guess, when the main menace is moral inanition and a heedless despair.
From The New Yorker
America, which is entertaining itself to inanition, has never experienced a scarcity of entertainment.
From Washington Post
Long before progress, understood as streaming, brought us binge-watching, she foresaw people entertaining themselves into inanition with portable technologies that enable “limitless self-absorption,” making people solipsistic and unmannerly.
From Washington Post
Two pathologists initially found that 49-year-old Michael Stanley Galliher died in August from complications of inanition, defined as an exhausted condition resulting from lack of nourishment.
From Seattle Times
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.
