Meanings
- participlepastsimple past and past participle of disuse
- not comparableNo longer in use.
The breath that stirred his lips he soon resigned To windy chaos, and we only find The garnered husks of his disusèd words.
1894, George Santayana, “On a Volume of Scholastic Philosophy”, in Sonnets and Other Verses, New York: Duffield & Co., published 1906, page 555 more examples
But as time & experience do reforme euery thing that is amisse, so this bitter poeme called the old Comedy, being disused and taken away, the new Comedy came in place, more ciuill and pleasant a great deale and not touching any man by name, but in a certain generalitie glancing at euery abuse,
1589, George Puttenham, chapter 14, in The Arte of English PoesieIn Scotland the custom, now disused in England, of inviting the relations of the deceased to the interment is universally retained.
1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], “Chapter 37”, in Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and Archibald Constable and Co., […], →OCLCAnd now Love sang: but his was such a song, So meshed with half-remembrance hard to free, As souls disused in death’s sterility May sing when the new birthday tarries long.
1881, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, “Willowwood”, in The House of Life, Stanza 2The tables, for instance, were to be covered with baize, but when the patron found that baize was expensive he bought instead disused army blankets, smelling incorrigibly of sweat.
1933 January 9, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter XIX, in Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz […], →OCLCIt was to assist in the filling-in of the tunnel on the disused Patricroft-Clifton Junction line, which was the scene of a disaster in 1953 when part, below some houses in Swinton, caved in.
1955 June, “Notes and News: Locomotive Notes: London Midland Region”, in Railway Magazine, page 439Synonyms: antiquated, defunct, outdated
Synonyms & antonyms
adjectiveNo longer in use.
More synonyms by meaning
adjectiveno longer in use
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Translations
Danish nedlagt, som ikke bruges mere
- nedlagtno longer in use
- som ikke bruges mereno longer in use
Finnish käytöstä poistettu
- käytöstä poistettuno longer in use
French désuet, désaffecté
- désuetno longer in use
- désaffecténo longer in use
Italian desueto
- desuetono longer in use
Norwegian Bokmål nedlagt
- nedlagtno longer in use
Polish nieużywany
- nieużywanyno longer in use
Portuguese desusado
- desusadono longer in use
Spanish desusado
- desusadono longer in use
Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with disused
All rhymes →Cite this entry
disused. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/disused
“disused.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/disused. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “disused,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/disused.
Source: disused on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.