Dilapidate
[di'læpideit]
Definition
(verb.) bring into a condition of decay or partial ruin by neglect or misuse.
Checked by Blanchard--From WordNet
Definition
(v. t.) To bring into a condition of decay or partial ruin, by misuse or through neglect; to destroy the fairness and good condition of; -- said of a building.
(v. t.) To impair by waste and abuse; to squander.
(v. i.) To get out of repair; to fall into partial ruin; to become decayed; as, the church was suffered to dilapidate.
Typed by Evangeline
Synonyms and Synonymous
v. a. Waste, ruin, destroy, pull down, throw down, suffer to go to ruin.
Edited by Ellis
Definition
v.t. to pull stone from stone: to lay waste: to suffer to go to ruin.—adj. Dilap′idated in ruins.—ns. Dilapidā′tion the state of ruin: impairing of church property during an incumbency: (pl.) money paid at the end of an incumbency by the incumbent or his heirs for the purpose of putting the parsonage &c. in good repair for the succeeding incumbent; Dilap′idator.
Edited by Griffith
Examples
- So I picked out the worst dilapidated street there was, and found I could only get two buildings, each 25 feet front, one 100 feet deep and the other 85 feet deep. Frank Lewis Dyer. Edison, His Life and Inventions.
- She was a little dilapidated--like a house--with having been so long to let; yet had, as I have said, an appearance of good looks. Charles Dickens. David Copperfield.
- There was, and is when I write, at the end of that low-lying street, a dilapidated little wooden building, probably an obsolete old ferry-house. Charles Dickens. David Copperfield.
- It was on the second story of a dilapidated building on the principal street of the city, with the battery-room in the rear; behind which was the office of the agent of the Associated Press. Frank Lewis Dyer. Edison, His Life and Inventions.
- The Last Supper is painted on the dilapidated wall of what was a little chapel attached to the main church in ancient times, I suppose. Mark Twain. The Innocents Abroad.
- Look at poor cropped and dilapidated Baalbec, and weep for the sentiment that has been wasted upon the Selims of romance! Mark Twain. The Innocents Abroad.
- Think of our Whitcombs, and our Ainsworths and our Williamses writing themselves down in dilapidated French in foreign hotel registers! Mark Twain. The Innocents Abroad.
Checker: Shelia