All 16 Uses
obsolete
in
The American Language, by Mencken
(Auto-generated)
- Others, which have long been obsolete in England, are still retained in common use among us.†
*obsolete = no longer in general use because it was replaced by something better
- e./, old English words, obsolete, or nearly so, in England, but retained in use in this country.†
- a. Words and phrases become obsolete in England, as /talented/, /offset/ (for /set-off/), /back and forth/ (for /backward and forward/).†
- Obsolete English words still in good use in America.†
- Genuine English words, obsolete or provincial in England, and universally used in the United States.†
- Forms of speech now obsolete or provincial in England, which survive in the United States, such as /allow/, /bureau/, /fall/, /gotten/, /guess/, /likely/, /professor/, /shoat/.†
- [37] The result of this isolation, on the one hand, was that proliferation of the colonial speech which I have briefly reviewed, and on the other hand, the preservation of many words and phrases that gradually became obsolete in England†
- A very large number of words and phrases, many of them now exclusively American, are similar survivals from the English of the seventeenth century, long since obsolete or merely provincial in England.†
- /Flap-jack/ goes back to Piers Plowman, but has been obsolete in England for two centuries.†
- /Muss/, in the sense of a row, is also obsolete over there, but it is to be found in "Anthony and Cleopatra."†
- [10] A long list of such obsolete Americanisms is given by Clapin in his Dictionary†
- [39] J. O. Halliwell (Phillips): A Dictionary of Archaisms and Provincialisms, Containing Words now Obsolete in England All of Which are Familiar and in Common Use in America, 2nd ed.; London, 1850†
- The first consisted of English words rescued from obsolescence or changed in meaning, the second of compounds manufactured of the common materials of the mother tongue, and the third of entirely new inventions.†
- [51] /Boulevard/, /drive/ and /speedway/ are almost [Pg300] unknown to the English, but they use /road/ for urban thoroughfares, which is very seldom done in America, and they also make free use of /place/, /walk/, /passage/, /lane/ and /circus/, all of which are obsolescent on this side of the ocean†
obsolescent = becoming outdated
- In the latter the verb /sing/ has but eight forms, and of these three are entirely obsolete, one is obsolescent, and two more may be dropped out without damage to comprehension.†
obsolete = no longer in general use because it was replaced by something better
- In the latter the verb /sing/ has but eight forms, and of these three are entirely obsolete, one is obsolescent, and two more may be dropped out without damage to comprehension.†
obsolescent = becoming outdated
Definitions:
-
(1)
(obsolete) no longer in general use because it was replaced by something better
- (2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)