atrophy

What it means

1. countableuncountablemedicineA reduction in the functionality of an organ caused by disease, injury or lack of use.First known use early 17th c.

   Now that chatbots are going the way of Google—moving from the miraculous to the taken-for-granted—the anxiety has shifted, too, from apocalypse to atrophy. Teachers, especially, say they’re beginning to see the rot. The term for it is unlovely but not inapt: de-skilling.

   2025 October 26, Kwame Anthony Appiah, “The Age of De-Skilling”, in The Atlantic

In a sentence

Now that chatbots are going the way of Google—moving from the miraculous to the taken-for-granted—the anxiety has shifted, too, from apocalypse to atrophy. Teachers, especially, say they’re beginning to see the rot. The term for it is unlovely but not inapt: de-skilling.

2025 October 26, Kwame Anthony Appiah, “The Age of De-Skilling”, in The Atlantic

Where it comes from

1. Ancient Greekἀτροφία“a wasting away”
2. Latinatrophia
3. Frenchatrophie
4. Englishatrophy

Borrowed from French atrophie, from Latin atrophia, from Ancient Greek ἀτροφία (atrophía, “a wasting away”), from ἄτροφος (átrophos, “ill-fed, un-nourished”), from ἀ- (a-, “not”) + τροφή (trophḗ, “nourishment”), from τρέφω (tréphō, “to fatten”). Equivalent to a- + -trophy.

First known use: early 17th c.