a wasting away of an organ or part, or a failure to grow to normal size as the result of disease, faulty nutrition, etc
2.
any degeneration or diminution, esp through lack of use
verbWord forms: -phies, -phying or -phied
3.
to waste away or cause to waste away
Derived forms
atrophic (əˈtrɒfɪk)
adjective
Word origin
C17: from Late Latin atrophia, from Greek, from atrophos ill-fed, from a-1 + -trophos from trephein to feed
atrophied in American English
(ˈætrəfid)
adjective
exhibiting or affected with atrophy; wasted; withered; shriveled
an atrophied arm
an atrophied talent
Word origin
[1590–1600; atrophy + -ed2]This word is first recorded in the period 1590–1600. Other words that entered Englishat around the same time include: class, investment, tea, tube, volunteer-ed is a suffix forming the past participle of weak verbs (he had crossed the river), and of participial adjectives indicating a condition or quality resulting fromthe action of the verb (inflated balloons). Other words that use the affix -ed include: classified, limited, loaded, truncated, unsettled
Examples of 'atrophied' in a sentence
atrophied
Is there any in that atrophied and pervasively corrupt party?
The Star (South Africa) (2005)
Investment, including the private sector, has atrophied.
Times, Sunday Times (2017)
Our spiritual muscles are atrophied through lack of use.
Times, Sunday Times (2012)
My friendships had atrophied as my time away from the web dwindled.
Times, Sunday Times (2016)
Politics has atrophied; there is no new thing in art.
Times, Sunday Times (2013)
We warehoused people on social security and watched as their expectations and aspirations atrophied.
Times, Sunday Times (2012)
He looks only 64 (his atrophied brain was 73).
Times, Sunday Times (2018)
My contemporary art knowledge atrophied 30 years ago; it badly needed to be rebooted.
Times, Sunday Times (2017)
But in the first half of the 20th century, this atrophied.
Times, Sunday Times (2009)
My skills were beans on toast and scrambled egg on toast, but they atrophied.