Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Worn out, as from exertion; exhausted.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Archaic Wasted in strength; tired; exhausted.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective archaic, poetic exhausted

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the past participle of forspend, equivalent to for- +‎ spent.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word forspent.

Examples

  • Nevertheless when the sea was stirred by violent blasts which were just rising from the rivers about evening, forspent with toil, they ceased.

    The Argonautica 2008

  • Nevertheless when the sea was stirred by violent blasts which were just rising from the rivers about evening, forspent with toil, they ceased.

    The Argonautica Apollonius Rhodius

  • Nevertheless when the sea was stirred by violent blasts which were just rising from the rivers about evening, forspent with toil, they ceased.

    The Argonautica Apollonius Rhodius

  • But on the fiends He fastened bonds of torment, and thrust them down into the depths of darkness, bitterly abashed, where darkly Satan rules, a woeful wretch, and with him the foul fiends, forspent with pain.

    Codex Junius 11 Unknown

  • We saw her, forspent, crawl into the thicket to sleep.

    The Wagnerian Romances Gertrude Hall Brownell 1912

  • The muse sits neglected, if not forspent, in the hemicycle of the arts: —“Dark Science broods in Fancy’s hermitage,

    0 Introduction. Stedman, Edmund Clarence, ed. 1900. An American Anthology, 1787-1900 Edmund Clarence Stedman 1900

  • Now lieth he in his halls forspent with grievous age, but other griefs are mine.

    The Iliad 750? BC-650? BC Homer 1882

  • And eke, for ignorance, I deemed thy love an easy thing, Thy love in which the noblest souls for languor are forspent;

    The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Volume II Anonymous 1879

  • So taste of the anguish that knows no relent And be with the rest of the wolven forspent!

    The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Volume III Anonymous 1879

  • And he goeth his way a great pace, and Messire Gawain also goeth amidst the forest, and full weary is he and forspent with travail.

    The High History of the Holy Graal Anonymous 1869

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.