Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The state or process of becoming obsolete.
- n. In entomology, an obsolete part of a mark, stria, etc.: as, a band with a central obsolescence.
Wiktionary
- n. The state of being obsolete—no longer in use; gone into disuse; disused or neglected.
- n. The process of becoming obsolete, outmoded or out of date.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The state of becoming obsolete.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the process of becoming obsolete; falling into disuse or becoming out of date
Examples
“You should accept that fact that this is a new way of life - adapt or look up the word "obsolescence" in the dictionary.”
“That built-in obsolescence is a pain and at least paper books don’t require you to update your reader.”
Books, Ebooks and the Environment « Tales from the Reading Room
“The built in obsolescence of computers drives me crazy.”
Books, Ebooks and the Environment « Tales from the Reading Room
“Nobody needs to develop a theory about and preach the obsolescence of the image; the obsolescence is objectively visible and speaks for itself.”
“Male obsolescence is the path to female happiness.”
“At least the makes of electrical widgets worldwide are sticking to built in obsolescence thus far.”
“Because we live in an age when rapid technological obsolescence is a truism, the more technical questions and answers of the interview are likely to acquire a patina before their time.”
“Indeed, one wonders what percentage of obsolescence is written into our laws due to the simple factor of time lag.”
“Those who remember the shoddy quality of the casebound edition of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Firecopies began falling apart before they had been read through the first timeand (rightly) blamed it on a printer better known for printing the Yellow Pages, catalogs, and similar works intended for occasionally browsing and short-term obsolescence (I suppose I should expect little better from Scholastic, but that's for another time) may start wondering whether there will be a bound-in carbonless order form for Book 7 in Book 6.”
“They’ve created a system that has built-in obsolescence, so they should have the foresight to experiment and adapt services and business models to secure their future existence.”
New Directions In Mobile is Pandoras box unleashed « Innovation Cloud
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘obsolescence’.
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Nycanthro's list
I like words. Have kept running lists for years now. If I'd been born wealthy I'd be a linguist. Or maybe a semi-reclusive yet world-weary linguist-humanitarian-hiphop-icon known for his humility a...
oaktag, backstory, homonormative, gobshite, imagineer, comeuppance, tomfoolery, ersatz, widdershins, gigajoule, oneupmanship, conniption and 40 more...
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Cool sounding words
Stuff that either rolls off the tongue really well or sounds interesting.
suppurate, inveterate, douche, Constantinople, zyzygy, polyglot, serendipitous, vivisection, solypsis, conflagration, instupituous, fecundity and 52 more...
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bestiary
agave, incunable, echt, wissenschaft, friscalating, obsolescence, clavier, yajna, ecstatic, casual, protean, hum and 41 more...
seanahan A much more poetic word than obsolete. Feb 5, 2007
chained_bear Spectacular! What an excellent usage note! Feb 5, 2007
mellsword “The sumptuous age of stars and images is reduced to a few artificial tornado effects, pathetic fake buildings, and childish tricks which the crowd pretends to be taken in by to avoid feeling too disappointed. Ghost towns, ghost people. The whole place has the same air of obsolescence about it as Sunset or Hollywood Boulevard.�? - Jean Baudrillard Feb 5, 2007