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.
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 • Apr. 5, 2019
America, which is entertaining itself to inanition, has never experienced a scarcity of entertainment.
From Washington Post • Jun. 2, 2017
He runs away to Paris, and there squanders the best year of his life in sophisticated inanition.
From Time Magazine Archive
Some people believe that humorous fiction in The New Yorker has long been legally dead of inanition.
From Time Magazine Archive
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 "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë
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.
