effete

Adjective

effete (comparative more effete, superlative most effete)

1. (obsolete, quantities etc) exhausted, spent, worn-out.
   • Nature is not effœte, as he saith, or so lavish, to bestow all her gifts upon an age, but hath reserved some for posterity, to shew her power, that she is still the same, and not old or consumed.1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition II...

   Synonyms:

   low, used up, consumed, depleted, out, done up, exhausted, all, expended, gone

2. Lacking strength or vitality; feeble, powerless, impotent.
   • Amid the effete monarchies and princedoms of feudal Europe, morally and materially exhausted by the Thirty Years' War, the only hope of resistance to France lay in the little Republic of merchants, Holland.1929, George Macaulay Trevelyan, History of England: From 1485 to the End of the Reign of Queen Anne, 1714, page 457
   • They used rock'n'roll as a weapon against itself. With all instruments but guitar, bass, drums, and voice written off as effete, as elitist accoutrements of a professionalist cult of technique, it was music best suited to anger and frustration, […]1989, Greil Marcus, Lipstick Traces, Faber & Faber, published 2009

   Synonyms:

   low, puny, anemic, breakable, broken-down, damaged, debilitated, decrepit, delicate, dickless

3. Decadent, weak through self-indulgence.
   • In fact, one obvious project of the MLF […] is to counter the idea that lobster is unusually luxe or unhealthy, suitable only for effete palates or the occasional blow-the-diet treat.2005, David Foster Wallace, Consider the Lobster and Other Essays, New York: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, page 238

   Synonyms:

   dissipated, incontinent

4. Affected, overrefined.
   • The Port Washington players all wear matching socks and shorts and tucked-in shirts. They look sharp but effete, a mannequinish aspect to them.1996, David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest […], Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, page 266

   Synonyms:

   fey, pretentious, stilted, affected, recherché, hoity-toity, overrefined, pansified, precious, smug