Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In ecclesiastical law, the amount charged against an incumbent for damages incurred during his incumbency.
  • noun In geology, the process by which exposed ledges become diminished or destroyed through the falling away of fragments of rock; also, the material broken off.
  • noun Gradual ruin or decay; disorder; especially, impairment or ruin through misuse or neglect.
  • noun Specifically In English ecclesiastical law, the pulling down, suffering to go to decay, or ruin of any building or other property in possession of an incumbent.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The act of dilapidating, or the state of being dilapidated, reduced to decay, partially ruined, or squandered.
  • noun Ecclesiastical waste; impairing of church property by an incumbent, through neglect or by intention.
  • noun (Law) The pulling down of a building, or suffering it to fall or be in a state of decay.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The state of being dilapidated, reduced to decay, partially ruined.
  • noun law The act of dilapidating, damaging a building or structure through neglect or by intention.
  • noun UK, law Ecclesiastical waste: impairing of church property by an incumbent, through neglect or by intention.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the process of becoming dilapidated
  • noun a state of deterioration due to old age or long use

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From dilapidate (itself from Latin dilapidare, literally "to destroy with stones", itself from dis (intensive) + lapidare, "to stone" (from lapis "stone")) + -ation

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