Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of, relating to, or characteristic of old age.
- adj. Relating to or exhibiting memory loss or mental impairment associated with aging.
- adj. Geology Worn away nearly to the base level, as at the end of an erosion cycle.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of old age; proceeding from age; especially, pertaining to or proceeding from the weaknesses that usually attend old age: as, senile garrulity; senile petulance.
- In physical geography, exhibiting features of old age in the geographical cycle: said of worn-flown land-forms.
Wiktionary
- adj. Of, or relating to old age.
- adj. Exhibiting the deterioration in mind and body often accompanying old age; doddering.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Of or pertaining to old age; proceeding from, or characteristic of, old age; affected with the infirmities of old age.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. mentally or physically infirm with age
Etymologies
- From Old French senile, from Latin senīlis ("of or pertaining to old age"), from Latin senex ("old"), from Gaulish and Proto-Indo-European *sénos (“old”). (Wiktionary)
- Latin senīlis, from senex, sen-, old. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“For John McCain to think that "losing one's bearings" impys "is old and senile" is totally incorrect.”
“As a direct consequence we may increase our understanding of many disease states such as developmental malformations, degenerative changes in senile dementia, delayed wound healing and tumour diseases.”
“However, this knowledge can be expected to improve our understanding of the pathogenesis of several clinical disorders such as malformation and errors of development, degenerative changes such as occur in senile dementia, delayed wound healing, muscle dystrophy as well as tumour diseases.”
“One of them murmured something under his breath; Scotty didn’t need to know any ’aase to understand the word "senile.”
“That's why it's important to fund Democratic 507/527s that can go extremely negative on McCain, for example, calling into question his flying recklessness and inability (four wrecks in a day's worth of flying), his Keating Five days, and his "senile" - appearing moments.”
Hillary-Backing Reps Say Super-Delegates Should Consider Wright Controversy
“Being known as a senile old fool or stumping with the dumbest broad on the planet?”
Think Progress » The ‘facts’ of the Christmas Day plot are ‘clear’ — to everyone except John McCain.
“The more I hear from him, the more I think he's just plain senile.”
“Technically, these changes in skin color are called senile or solar lentigines and they're usually brought on by sun exposure.”
“Even if he had gone public with his opposition to the War in Iraq, he just would have been called a senile old man by the Bush enabling press.”
““But you could tolerate being called a senile old fool?””
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘senile’.
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1100
abound, technology, branch of knowled..., prognosticate, automaton, matron, an older married ..., realm, special field of ..., kingdom, annals, historical records and 981 more...
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GRE 2014
abase, abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1824 more...
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Barron's 1100 words you need to know ...
rue, aegis, awesome, conflagration, congenial, debris, deplorable, detriment, dispersed, doddering, eruption, hoard and 7 more...
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fifi
verbs Adj Adv noun
indulge, convene, solve, dissolve, prospect, prospective, allege, resolve, accountable, administration, amid, agenda and 407 more...
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spazgirl's words
dilettante, elegy, derelict, evince, solicitous, shibboleth, exculpate, karma, animadversion, arrogate, effrontery, grouse and 114 more...
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Vocab
Words that I come across, and go blank, or want to clarify.
nefarious, edifice, malevolent, ostensible, folderol, bauble, livid, amnesty, calculus, saddlery, maisonette, cuisse and 423 more...
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curligirli0's Words
crapulous, swish, shiatsu, zen, xenoglossy, nincompoop, loquacious, pianissimo, onomatopoeia, imperturbable, silky, hosanas and 379 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
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SAT PSAT ALPHABETICAL S
surrogate, supplanted, supercilious, supersede, substantiate, synopsis, symmetry, sumptuous, swelter, swagger, surmise, summation and 156 more...
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ifjuly's list
favorite words. some are made up injokes between me and my husband or family.
skein, zaftig, july, bed, orifice, aesthete, ink, parce-que, desormais, cake, pusillanimous, pulse and 531 more...
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Sat Vocabulary List
abandon, abash, abate, abjure, ablution, abnegate, abominable, aboriginal, abortive, abrade, abridge, abrogate and 2155 more...
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New GRE Preparation List
All the words which I encounter during my GRE studies. :)
rhetoric, errant, arrant, artless, artful, ephemeral, libel, rhapsody, cloy, conjecture, relegate, aberrant and 927 more...
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thricedotted's Words
schadenfreude, vanquish, calumny, obsequious, rhapsody, expostulate, promontory, bordello, quintessence, catharsis, recapitulation, myriad and 937 more...
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"Words, words, words."
abase, abject, abstruse, adjutant, altercation, altruistic, angst, anodyne, anomie, ape, apprehensive, aquiline and 310 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for senile.
jpmaher In "senile old fool" the word senile for the masses means not old but demented. Syntax is the reason: In senile dementia, the meaning of the second term has "impregnated" the first term. Stoic grammarians (not the stolid guys) actually called the phenomenon "pregnancy". Other useful terms for it: transferred epithet, adventitious association, adequation... Mar 11, 2012