inanitiation

Noun

inanition (countable and uncountable, plural inanitions)

1. The act of removing the contents of something; the state of being empty.
   • Secondary causes of sleepe are divers; as excessive labour, agitation of the body, repletion, as by excesse of meates or drinkes, inanition, as by Copulation and many more of this kinde, which doe so waste the spirits, that of necessity, there behooveth a cessation to be for a time, that new...1635, David Person, “Of Sleepe and Dreames”, in Varieties: or, A Surveigh of Rare and Excellent Matters Necessary and Delectable for All Sorts of Persons, London: Thomas Alchorn, Section 1, pp....

   Synonyms:

   emptying, emptiness

   Antonyms:

   repletion

2. A state of advanced lack of adequate nutrition, food, or water or a physiological inability to utilize them, with resulting weakness.
   • It may be reasonably inferred that our baby will first expire of inanition, as being the frailest member of our circle; and that our twins will follow next in order.1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, chapter 52, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC

   Synonyms:

   starvation, cachexia

3. A spiritual emptiness or lack of purpose or will to live, akin to nausea in existentialist philosophy.
   • There bending over her, with eyes bathed in tears, she watched the progress of her beloved Rosilia's melancholy disorder; she beheld her, pale, exhausted, either in listless inanition, or haunted with the dreadful idea that mental derangement or death would terminate her sufferings!1838, [Letitia Elizabeth] Landon (indicated as editor), chapter XIII, in Duty and Inclination: […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 186