Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Progressively wasting away.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- In medicine, suffering from tabes; wasting away; becoming emaciated.
- In botany, wasting or shriveling.
Wiktionary
- adj. Wasting away, or becoming emaciated.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Withering, or wasting away.
Etymologies
- C 1890, from Latin tabescens, present participle of tabescere (Wiktionary)
- Latin tābēscēns, tābēscent-, present participle of tābēscere, to waste away, inchoative of tābēre, from tābēs, a wasting away. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“At this weak, pale, tabescent moment in the history of American literature, we need a battalion, a brigade, of Zolas to head out into this wild, bizarre, unpredictable, Hog-stomping Baroque country of ours and reclaim its literary property .”
“... as Wolfe makes clear, a writer needs to be big and strong because a real writer is more warrior than artist: “At this weak, pale, tabescent moment in the history of American literature, we need a battalion, a brigade, of Zolas to head out into this wild, bizarre, unpredictable, Hog-stomping Baroque country of ours and reclaim it as literary property.””
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘tabescent’.
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phrontistery-t
from phrontistery.info
tabacosis, tabanid, tabaret, tabati?re, tabby, tabefaction, tabellary, tabellion, tabernacle, tabernacular, tabescent, tabific and 930 more...
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theyearofglad's list
Awesome words.
palimpsest, portmanteau, prolix, sycophant, eschew, revenant, haecceity, velleity, equipoise, caesura, soteriology, inchoate and 23 more...
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i heart words
autarkic, cline, aver, limn, gossamer, ochre, fulminate, twee, augur, mollify, maw, ecumenical and 113 more...
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Infinite Jest
Words taken from Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.
prorector, monograph, post-fourier, snuffle, rototremble, creatus, enfilade, subanimalistic, balletic, espadrilles, leonine, cirri and 1153 more...
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msc's Words
pugilist, threepeat, bloviate, palaver, syncreism, pastiche, eschatology, peripatetic, glossolalia, busker, nudnik, troglodyte and 213 more...
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Wordie/Wordnik Curio Cabinet
Oddments culled from my "main" lists that belong in a display cabinet of their own, plus sundry other curiosities. :-)
zeugma, ziggurat, xiphoid, xeric, whizgigging, whangdoodle, viviparous, vivific, vinolent, verjuice, vellicate, velleity and 1193 more...
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Learned words
Words which are highly likely to be found in the work of learned writers.
ailurophile, labyrinthine, lagniappe, colleague, anechoic, reglets, fluctuations, scalar, implicit, constitute, mortification, ambassadors and 629 more...
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5-0
Hecko, words! I’m so happy I’ve found you. I want to keep you all and never want to lose you again. I hope you like it here.
amscray, thistledown, tine, tinsel, pungent, snarl, wail, lanky, viscid, dawdle, luminous, stow and 2719 more...
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Word of Infinite Jest
quincunx, plosivity, prolix, aleatory, diagnate, appetitive, experialist, candidiatic, chapeau, perfidiously, antitheory, décolletage and 150 more...
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Wordie words I didn't know
Stuff I leaned on the innernets & intertubes... ...specifically here at Wordie.
aeolian, terpsichorean, comestibles, glycyrrhizin, arctophile, buggerated fuckst..., vibrational coupling, tabescent, prunes and prisms, cunctatory, intertextualism
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They Grow on You
accrescent, acescent, adipescent, alkalescent, contabescent, convalescent, decrescent, deliquescent, equicrescent, excrescent, fervescent, flavescent and 27 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for tabescent.

zweidinge wasting away; becoming emaciated or consumed May 17, 2009