Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Gradual ruin or decay; disorder; especially, impairment or ruin through misuse or neglect.
- n. Specifically In English ecclesiastical law, the pulling down, suffering to go to decay, or ruin of any building or other property in possession of an incumbent.
- n. In ecclesiastical law, the amount charged against an incumbent for damages incurred during his incumbency.
- n. In geology, the process by which exposed ledges become diminished or destroyed through the falling away of fragments of rock; also, the material broken off.
Wiktionary
- n. The state of being dilapidated, reduced to decay, partially ruined.
- n. law The act of dilapidating, damaging a building or structure through neglect or by intention.
- n. UK, law Ecclesiastical waste: impairing of church property by an incumbent, through neglect or by intention.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The act of dilapidating, or the state of being dilapidated, reduced to decay, partially ruined, or squandered.
- n. Ecclesiastical waste; impairing of church property by an incumbent, through neglect or by intention.
- n. (Law) The pulling down of a building, or suffering it to fall or be in a state of decay.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the process of becoming dilapidated
- n. a state of deterioration due to old age or long use
Etymologies
- From dilapidate (itself from Latin dilapidare, literally "to destroy with stones", itself from dis (intensive) + lapidare, "to stone" (from lapis "stone")) + -ation (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Cancer differs ... from heart disease and cirrhosis and the other lethal forms of physiological breakdown; uncontrolled cell reproduction, not organ dilapidation, is the problem.”
CreatureCast video: multicellularity explained - Boing Boing
“The dilapidation was a pleasing reminiscence of old times, and George was pleased enough to earn a quarter by patching it up.”
Letters from Port Royal Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868)
“Age is here, but it does not suggest the idea of dilapidation or decay; rather of something which has been put under a glass case, and preserved with care from all extraneous influences.”
“The Mission, aimed at pulling India's 63 cities out of their dilapidation, which is somewhat reminiscent of Dickensian London, is conditional upon a bunch of mandatory reforms.”
“Besides which, they are always kept clean and in good order; you will never find those unsightly barns, and still less the dilapidation which is often met with in the mother land.”
Lands of the Slave and the Free Cuba, the United States, and Canada
“No doubt the ancient city did not exhibit that air of mouldering dilapidation which is now so prominent there.”
“The towns and villages in this region, though smaller and less prosperous than those of the free States, present an agreeable contrast to the squalid dilapidation which is everywhere visible upon the borders of the Atlantic.”
“By law the program is supposed to help blighted areas that wouldn't attract sufficient economic development "without the benefits of tax increment financing" - that is, areas that won't improve unless the city ponies up to get rid of "dilapidation," vacant buildings, and environmental problems and bolster infrastructure.”
“dilapidation' and a huge unintegrated pool of Muslim immigrants.”
“Consequently, large numbers of villas have not been in use for many years bringing them down to further dilapidation.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘dilapidation’.
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miserable circumstances
describing living arrangements from the less-than-stellar, to the sordid
burrow, garret, ghetto, hovel, hut, lean-to, cavern, shack, shanty, shed, slum, tenement and 59 more...
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Wuthering Heights
From Wuthering Heights
sagacity, austere, surmise, corroborating, malignity, ensconing, copious, perforce, obviate, dilapidation, must needs, palaver and 154 more...
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Copycatalyst's Words
infinitsmally, stimmyied, cannablissed, copycatalyst, hollowgram, xeroxian, nihilion, scion, exacerbate, stymied, eschew, cauterized and 140 more...
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Only to be used by the super smart
Tweets
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