Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Being in the process of passing out of use or usefulness; becoming obsolete.
  • adjective Biology Becoming reduced during the course of evolution; vestigial or nearly vestigial. Used of an organ or other part of an organism.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Becoming obsolete; passing out of use: as, an obsolescent word or custom.
  • In entomology, somewhat obsolete; imperfectly visible.

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

  • adjective Going out of use; becoming obsolete; passing into desuetude.

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

  • adjective In the process of becoming obsolete, but not obsolete yet.

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

  • adjective becoming obsolete

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin obsolēscēns, obsolēscent-, present participle of obsolēscere, to fall into disuse : ob-, away; see ob– + solēre, to be accustomed to.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

First attested circa 1780, from Latin obsolescentum.

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