Definitions for hebetude

But the intelligence (that more precious heirloom) was degenerate; the treasure of ancestral memory ran low; and it had required the potent, plebeian crossing of a muleteer or mountain contrabandista to raise what approached hebetude in the mother into active oddity of the son. Robert Louis Stevenson, "Olalla," The Merry Men and Other Tales and Fables, 1889

At the same time an irresistible drowsiness surged upon Gerard himself in spite of all his volition, in spite of the eldritch terrors and forebodings that still murmured in his brain. He heard through his growing hebetude a whisper as of shadowy wings in the castle halls… Clark Ashton Smith, "A Rendezvous in Averoigne," Out of Space and Time, 1942