Definitions

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

  • adjective Growing old; aging.
  • adjective No longer dividing. Used of a cell.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Growing old; aging: as, a senescent beau.

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

  • adjective Growing old; decaying with the lapse of time.

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

  • adjective Growing old; decaying with the lapse of time.
  • adjective characteristic of old age

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

  • adjective growing old

Etymologies

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

[Latin senēscēns, senēscent-, present participle of senēscere, to grow old, inchoative of senēre, to be old, from senex, sen-, old; see sen- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin senescens, present participle of senescere ("to grow old"), from senere ("to be old"), from senex ("old").

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word senescent.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • I like this word..

    April 3, 2012