disuse

I

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

Lack of use

Nouns

1. disuse, forbearance, abstinence; obsoleteness, [planned] obsolescence; relinquishment; cessation, discontinuance; abandonment; castaway, throwaway, reject. Informal, cold storage. See rejection.

2. (lack of practice) desuetude, disusage, want of habit or practice, unaccustomedness, newness to; nonprevalence.

Verbs

1. disuse, not use; do without, dispense with, let alone, not touch, forbear, abstain, spare, waive, neglect; keep back, reserve.

2. (store) lay up or by, lay on the shelf, shelve; set, put, or lay aside; obsolesce, be superseded (see substitution); taper off.

3. discard, abandon, throw aside or away, toss or throw out, relinquish; make away with, cast overboard, cast to the winds, jettison; dismantle, etc. Informal, scrap, junk, deep-six.

4. be unaccustomed to, break or wean oneself of a habit.

Adjectives

1. disused, not used, unemployed, unapplied, undisposed of, unspent, unexercised, untouched, untrodden, unessayed, ungathered, unculled; uncalled for, not required; run-down, obsolete, obsolescent.

2. unused, unseasoned; new, green; unhackneyed. See oldness.

Phrases — rights are lost by disuse.

Quotations — Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigors of the mind (Leonardo da Vinci).

Antonyms, see habit, use.

II

(Roget's IV) n.

1. [The stoppage of use]

Syn. discontinuance, abolition, desuetude, nonobservance, inaction, discarding, cessation, intermission, interruption, abolishment, abrogation, forbearance, abstinence, relinquishment.

Ant. use*, continuance, continuation.

2. [The state of being unused]

Syn. decay, neglect, abandonment, unemployment, desertedness; see also idleness 1 , neglect 1 , omission 1 .

Ant. production*, usefulness, employment.

III

(Roget's Thesaurus II) noun The quality or state of being obsolete: desuetude, obsoleteness, obsoletism. See NEW, USED.