Link Centre Dictionary

desuetude

de·sue·tude

UK/ˈdɛswɪtjuːd/ US/dɪˈs(j)uːɪtjuːd/ uncommon formal obsolete

noun

1.

Origin

From Late Middle English desuetude, dissuetude (“discontinuance of a practice, disuse”), from Middle French désuétude (“obsolescence”) (modern French désuétude), from Latin dēsuētūdo (“discontinuance of a practice or a habit, disuse”), from dēsuētus + -tūdō (“suffix forming abstract nouns indicating conditions or states”). Dēsuētus is the perfect passive participle of dēsuēscō (“to make unaccustomed”), from de- (prefix having a reversing or undoing effect) + suēscō (“to become accustomed or used to; (Late Latin) to accustom, habituate, train”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *swé (“self”) + *dʰeh₁- (“to do; to place, put”), in the sense “to set as one’s own”).

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Broader terms

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.