assuetude

See also: assuétude

English

Etymology

From Latin assuetudo, from assuetus (“accustomed”).

Noun

assuetude (countable and uncountable, plural assuetudes)

1. (archaic) Accustomedness; habit.
   • 1631, Francis [Bacon], “(please specify |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], 3rd edition, London: […] William Rawley; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC:

     Assuetude of things hurtful doth make them lose their force to hurt.

2. The condition of an organism that has acquired tolerance of a drug or poison.
   • 1836, Frederick Marryat, The Pirate, Chapter VII:

     The boy had been his companion for years: and from assuetude had become, as it were, a part of himself.

   • 1896, Matthew Phipps Shiel, Vaila:

     My flesh writhed like the glutinous flesh of a serpent. Slowly moved, and stopped: -- then was a sweep -- and a swirl -- and a pause! then a swirl -- and a sweep -- and a pause! -- then steady industry of labour on the monstrous brazen axis, as the husbandman plods by the plough; then increase of zest, assuetude of a fledgeling to the wing -- then intensity -- then the last light ecstasy of flight.

Derived terms

• unassuetude

 

References

• “assuetude”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.