inanition

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....
   • 3. What meane you by Incarnation?
     His inanition of himselfe, and as it were debasing of himselfe in respect of his majesty of divinity, thereby to put on humanity.1643, William Slatyer, The Compleat Christian, London, for the author, The Second Part of the Catechism, Section 5, p. 110

   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
   • The Diet of the street-children is in some cases an alternation of surfeit and inanition [...]1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1, London: George Woodfall & Son, page 475

   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
   • I had forced into his hand the means to carry on decently the serious business of life, to get food, drink, and shelter of the customary kind while his wounded spirit, like a bird with a broken wing, might hop and flutter into some hole, to die quietly of inanition there.1900, Joseph Conrad, chapter 17, in Lord Jim, Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood, page 196