obsolete
Americanadjective
-
no longer in general use; fallen into disuse.
an obsolete expression.
-
of a discarded or outmoded type; out of date.
an obsolete battleship.
- Synonyms:
- old, ancient, antiquated
-
(of a linguistic form) no longer in use, especially, out of use for at least the past century.
-
effaced by wearing down or away.
-
Biology. imperfectly developed or rudimentary in comparison with the corresponding character in other individuals, as of a different sex or of a related species.
verb (used with object)
adjective
-
out of use or practice; not current
-
out of date; unfashionable or outmoded
-
biology (of parts, organs, etc) vestigial; rudimentary
Usage
Terms and definitions labeled Obsolete in this dictionary have not been in widespread use since the mid 1700s. Unlike some relatively familiar archaic words and phrases, like prithee and thou art, obsolete words and phrases are not easily understood by a modern reader, and obsolete senses of current terms, as found in definitions 13, 14, and 15 of nice, are even more difficult for a contemporary reader to recognize.
The word obsoleteness is hardly ever used, obsolescence standing as the noun form for both obsolete and obsolescent
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of obsolete
First recorded in 1570–80; from Latin obsolētus, past participle of obsolēscere “to fall into disuse,” perhaps equivalent to ob- ob- + sol(ēre) “to be accustomed to” + -ēscere -esce
Explanation
Use the adjective obsolete for something that is out of date. As the Rolling Stones song "Out of Time" goes, "You're obsolete, my baby, my poor old-fashioned baby." Obsolete is from the Latin obsolescere "to fall into disuse," and it is a very handy adjective for anything that is no longer used, from words to factories to computer software to ways of thinking. Something that is obsolete has usually been displaced by a newer, shinier innovation. Compact discs made records and cassettes obsolete, and then downloadable digital music files made compact discs obsolete.
Vocabulary lists containing obsolete
The Giver
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Essential Academic Vocabulary for High School Students, List 3
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List 6
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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:
Accelerators without Nvidia’s software became obsolete within a few years as models changed, she said, while Nvidia’s own A100 chips, shipped six years ago, are still fully in use.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 20, 2026
Audiences making their way to the Academy’s VistaVision series will be stepping back in time, seeing movies in a way that has been all but obsolete for some 65 years.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2026
The once-familiar picture of a war fought with infantry at the front and dog-fights in the air has become increasingly obsolete.
From Barron's ● Aug. 20, 2026
“My anxiety about A.I. is not that it will make my job obsolete but that it will make me a little dumber,” I wrote.
From Slate ● Aug. 18, 2026
“And I couldn’t care less how Scythe Nehru feels. Old-guard scythes have obsolete ideas. They’re too set in their ways to see the wisdom of the Change.”
From "Scythe" by Neal Shusterman
Some will claim that a digital, electronic world has obsoleted written communication.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 8, 2020
Sometimes it’s a matter of the rules simply being obsoleted and needing to be upgraded, as in the case of self-driving cars, and in most cases the evolution is going smoothly.
From Forbes ● Jan. 3, 2014
"McDonald's got obsoleted on their food," says Malcolm M. Knapp, a food-industry consultant based in Manhattan.
From Time Magazine Archive
Sometimes applied to planes obsoleted by the air service.
From Aces Up by Covington Clarke
He wondered if Gud had been unethical and double-crossed him with a spurious revelation, getting out another one later with utterly different beliefs and morals, so that the doubts and temptations were thus all obsoleted.
From The Book of Gud by Harold Hersey
“Earlier in 2026, fears around AI disrupting — or even obsoleting — software business models dominated the narrative,” he noted, with the chart above highlighting software stocks that have “managed to claw back losses.”
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 17, 2026
Frequently when a change is made to some RFC that causes a new one to be issued obsoleting others, the new RFC only contains explanations and motivations for the change.
From Hitchhiker's Guide to the Internet by Ed Krol
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.
