Efete

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Describes something worn out and no longer able to produce or sustain life ; characterizing a person or society as weak, self-indulgent, and overly refined
2. Exhausted from age or overuse and unable to bear fruit ; describing a culture or person as feeble, decadent, and excessively delicate
3. Used of a thing drained of vigor and fertility ; applied to people or societies that seem enfeebled, luxurious, and overly cultivated

Etymology: "Efete" comes from Latin "effetus," literally "worn out by bearing young," built from "ex-" ("out") and "fetus" ("offspring," or "a bearing"). The image is of a female animal that has given birth many times and is exhausted by it, so the word began as a description of a body spent by reproduction rather than a general term for weakness. English borrowed the word in the 1600s, and it kept that sense of depletion, applied to people, institutions and styles that have run their course. Its meaning drifted toward "decadent" and "lacking energy," and it is now mostly used of anything that seems to have lost its original vitality.