desuetude

noun

Etymology: From Late Middle English desuetude, dissuetude (“discontinuance of a practice, disuse”), from Middle French désuétude (“obsolescence”) (modern French désuétude), from Latin dēsuētūdo (“discontinuance of a practice or a habit, disuse”), from dēsuētus + -tūdō (“suffix forming abstract nouns indicating conditions or states”). Dēsuētus is the perfect passive participle of dēsuēscō (“to make unaccustomed”), from de- (prefix having a reversing or undoing effect) + suēscō (“to become accustomed or used to; (Late Latin) to accustom, habituate, train”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *swé (“self”) + *dʰeh₁- (“to do; to place, put”), in the sense “to set as one’s own”).

1. The state when something (for example, a custom or a law) is no longer observed nor practised; disuse, obsolescence.

   “And they being in a capacity to forget by reaſon of deſuetude, it will be a nevv pleaſure to them to recall to minde their almoſt obliterate ſpeculations.”

   “For whatſoever is derived from the law of God cannot by men admit variety, nor ſuffer diminution, or goe into deſuetude, or be extinguiſh'd by abrogation: […]”

2. The state when something (for example, a custom or a law) is no longer observed nor practised; disuse, obsolescence.

   “Owing, I will believe, to Fred's sudden flurry in the unprovided moment,—unprovided, by reason of prior desuetudes and discouragements to speech, on Papa's side.”

   “The spirit of that little school is wholly incompatible [with those] who cling to obsolete opinions and customs, and seem to be enamoured with the desuetudes of older times as such, and praising their own former times as vehemently is if they would sell them.”

3. Chiefly followed by from or of: a cessation of practising or using something.

   “[T]he beſt Chriſtians, and (vvitneſs David) the greateſt Proficients in Scripture-Knovvledge, have the keeneſt Stomacks to this Food of Souls; and the vigorouſeſt Piety, by a Deſuetude and Neglect of it, is ſubject to Faint and Pine avvay.”

   “Again, ſome Countries were benè morati, well diſciplined in Learning, Arts, and Knowledge, but poſſibly by the Irruption of numerous Armies of Barbarous People, thoſe Countries were quickly over-grown with Barbariſm and deſuetude from their former Civility and Knowledge, and degenerated into the Ignorance and Barbariſm of their Conquerors; ſo that in a reaſonable Period of time much of their ancient Knowledge and Arts was forgotten, as if they never had it.”