spavined
Americanadjective
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suffering from or affected with spavin.
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being of or marked by a decrepit or broken-down condition.
a spavined old school bus abandoned in a field.
adjective
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vet science affected with spavin; lame
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decrepit or worn out
Etymology
Origin of spavined
First recorded in 1400–50, spavined is from the late Middle English word spaveyned. See spavin, -ed 3
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.
The emblematic meme stock of 2021 was GameStop, a spavined mall-based video game retailer that was struggling through the transformation of its franchise from brick-and-mortar stores to online commerce.
From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 31, 2025
But it’s hardly as if Hirschfeld were content to sit in that spavined old barber’s chair up in his East Side aerie, sealed off from the wider world.
From New York Times • Jul. 8, 2021
Kodak, once a powerhouse in the photography and specialty chemicals businesses, was a spavined shadow of its former self by 2019.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 18, 2020
Not the spavined buffoons of the Wodehousian imagination, but the revenge-crazed thugs of the century following the Restoration.
From The Guardian • Jun. 16, 2010
Such a marching of Intellect is distinctly of the spavined kind; what the Jockeys call "all action and no go."
From A Century of English Essays An Anthology Ranging from Caxton to R. L. Stevenson & the Writers of Our Own Time by Rhys, Ernest
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.
