atrophied

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Related to atrophied: disuse atrophy

at·ro·phy

(ăt′rə-fē)

n. pl. at·ro·phies

1. A wasting or decrease in size of a body organ, tissue, or part owing to disease, injury, or lack of use: muscular atrophy of a person affected with paralysis.

2. A wasting away, deterioration, or diminution: intellectual atrophy.

v. at·ro·phied, at·ro·phy·ing, at·ro·phies

v.tr.

To cause to wither or deteriorate; affect with atrophy.

v.intr.

To waste away; wither or deteriorate.

[Late Latin atrophia, from Greek atrophiā, from atrophos, ill-nourished : a-, without; see a-¹ + trophē, food.]

a·troph′ic (ā-trŏf′ĭk) adj.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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Adj.

atrophied - (of an organ or body part) diminished in size or strength as a result of disease or injury or lack of use; "partial paralysis resulted in an atrophied left arm"

diminished, wasted

enlarged, hypertrophied - (of an organ or body part) excessively enlarged as a result of increased size in the constituent cells; "hypertrophied myocardial fibers"

References in classic literature ?

If you have to fly about to find every meal you eat, your muscles do not become atrophied (atrophied means wasted away through want of use).

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It is certain that the mind becomes atrophied in a defective body.

View in context

We may note the garlic and whisky on the breath of a fellow strap hanger, or the cheap perfume emanating from the person of the wondrous lady sitting in front of us, and deplore the fact of our sensitive noses; but, as a matter of fact, we cannot smell at all, our olfactory organs are practically atrophied, by comparison with the development of the sense among the beasts of the wild.