Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Pathology A wasting or decrease in size of a body organ, tissue, or part owing to disease, injury, or lack of use: muscular atrophy of a person affected with paralysis.
- n. A wasting away, deterioration, or diminution: intellectual atrophy.
- v. To cause to wither or deteriorate; affect with atrophy.
- v. To waste away; wither or deteriorate.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A wasting of the body, or of a part of it, owing to defective nutrition.
- n. In botany and zoology, arrested development of an organ due to stoppage of growth at any stage by the operation of causes either external to or inherent in the organism.
- To waste away.
Wiktionary
- n. pathology A reduction in the functionality of an organ caused by disease, injury or lack of use.
- v. To wither or waste away.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A wasting away from lack of nourishment; diminution in bulk or slow emaciation of the body or of any part.
- v. To cause to waste away or become abortive; to starve or weaken.
- v. To waste away; to dwindle.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a decrease in size of an organ caused by disease or disuse
- n. any weakening or degeneration (especially through lack of use)
- v. undergo atrophy
Etymologies
- From French atrophie, from Latin atrophia, from Ancient Greek ἀτροφία (atrophia, "a wasting away"), from ἄτροφος (atrophos, "ill-fed, un-nourished"), from ἀ- (a-, "not") + τροφή (trophē, "nourishment"), from τρέφω (trephō, "I fatten"). (Wiktionary)
- Late Latin atrophia, from Greek atrophiā, from atrophos, ill-nourished : a-, without; see a-1 + trophē, food. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Infantile paralysis, which often appears suddenly, muscular atrophy, which develops slowly, _progressive and chronic atrophy_ of the muscles, are also forms of muscular disease, combined with destruction of the accompanying nerve tissue.”
Valere Aude Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration
“His mother explained that his disease, spinal muscular atrophy, is gradually deteriorating his neuromuscular system so that every few months, he loses more of his ability to move.”
“Our country languishes today in atrophy from pay to play politics.”
“It confirms earlier research showing a link between brain atrophy and low levels of B12.”
“Brain atrophy in elderly leads to unintended racism, depression and problem gambling”
“Mark Siegel of the blog 19th Floor, who has spinal muscular atrophy, is the subject of a feature article in Law & Politics, a legal magazine out of Minnesota.”
“While the terms atrophy and abortion apply in the main to a mere diminution of size, as contrasted with the ordinary standard, degeneration may be understood to apply to those cases in which not only is the absolute bulk diminished, but the whole form is altered and depauperated.”
Vegetable Teratology An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants
“Huxley declares that the sense of uselessness is the severest shock which the human system can sustain, and that if persistently sustained, it results in atrophy of function.”
“We do not commonly conceive that the children are discouraged, thus, in the matter of piety; but the real fact is, that their better, higher nature, quite worn down by such treatment, sinks at last into a kind of atrophy, which is the essence of all discouragement.”
“Sitting also leaves back muscles weaker than watered-down coffee, since sitters don’t actively use and engage those muscles much throughout the day—it’s what’s called disuse atrophy in other words, you lose it if you don’t use it.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘atrophy’.
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EN - fine scholarly language
exhort, accretion, twenty-nine, atrophy, additive, brilliantly, interreligious, empiricism, pathologic, limitless, half-century, vigilant and 488 more...
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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hunting
crudely, unequivocal, obsolete, obscure, overtly, misdeed, shack, inherent, outcry, hefty, composed, poised and 319 more...
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SCIE - neurology
abducens.....draw..., ablation.....carr..., acetylcholine......., adrenalin.....nea..., afferent.....to c..., agnosia.....no kn..., alar.....wing-like, alexia.....no words, alveus.....canal, amacrine.....no l..., ambidextrous........, ambiguus.....doub... and 701 more...
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Here Comes Almost Everybody
words of what happens when one is left behind.
reference to Joyce's Book of the Dark (a dissecting of Finnegan's Wake)enervated, unnerved, vitiated, thinned, enfeebled, gone to seed, pilfered, quaff, plaque, antithesis, blimp, listless and 7 more...
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Words for financial performance
Business and financial journalists tend to use the same tired few words to describe what happens to economies, markets and prices. Enough of grow, soar, boom, crash, bust, collapse and so on. Let's...
swell, inflate, dilate, mount, accrue, magnify, amplify, blossom, fatten up, dwindle, dissipate, shrivel and 31 more...
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diseases that make lovely baby girl's...
usually i try to restrict this to sexually transmitted diseases, but some of the others are just so musical. Syphilis, it should be noted, would make a lovely boy's name, but that is outside the sc...
gonorrhea, chlamydia, roseola, rubella, angina, atrophy, candida, cholera, jaundice, palsy, leukemia, alopecia and 50 more...
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Words I had to ask "What does that me...
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GRE 3500
abase, abash, abate, aberrant, abeyance, abjure, ablution, abut, accede, accentuate, acerbity, acetic and 133 more...
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Words I Know
List of most of the words I've learned
garner, abase, abate, abdicate, abduct, aberration, abet, abhor, abide, abject, abjure, abnegation and 1046 more...
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mager's Words
enigmatic, pragmatic, pulchritudinous, nincompoop, annihilation, sociality, entailment, acrosome, egalitarian, culture, technocracy, shenanigan and 541 more...
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Vocabulary
Words I come across while reading.
talus, echelon, onanistic, cabochon, avocation, charnel, moue, portentous, prolixity, astringent, hoary, patina and 165 more...
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vocabulary
verisimilitude, pendulate, moxie, whimper, nary, stevedore, hubris, prodigious, super-injunction, injunction, lashings, fennel and 202 more...
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know-it-all
eunuch, couvade, ecclesiastes, enigma, inevitable, crucible, genteel, bedlam, baculum, scapulimancy, atrophy, smut and 170 more...
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SAT PSAT ALPHABETICAL A
abandon, abash, abate, abjure, ablution, abnegate, abominable, aboriginal, abortive, abrade, abridge, abrogate and 172 more...
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Word of the day.
Some days, there will be a word. That word is the word of the day. Other days shall remain wordless. That's just the way things go.
petulant, anisometropia, zoroaster, cram, affinity, proprietary, cupertino effect, sidereal, schmutz, icosanoids, vendetta, bougie and 137 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for atrophy.
slumry Is that like lettuce alone? Jul 16, 2007
gerwitz I like atrophy salad. Jul 16, 2007