exolete

English

Alternative forms

• exolet ([17th C.])

Etymology

From the Latin exolētus, the perfect passive participle of exolescō, from ex +‎ olēscō (from oleō +‎ -ēscō).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, UK) IPA^(key): /ˈɛksəliːt/

Adjective

exolete (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) That has gone out of use; disused, obsolete.
   • 1611, Thomas Coryat, Coryat’s Crudities, page 178:

     A Greeke inscription which I could not understand by reason of the antiquity of those exolete letters.

   • 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, part II, section iv, member i, subsection 5:

     In which [apothecaries’ shops] many…exolete, things out of date are to be had.

   • 1651, George Digby, chapter IV, in Letters between Lord George Digby and Sir Kenelm Digby, Knt. concerning Religion, page 125:

     Paganism is ridiculous, Judaism exolete.

   • 1652, Thomas Urquhart, Ἐκσκυβαλαυρον; or, The Jewel in his Works (1834), page 211:

     Plautus exolet phrases have been [exploded] from the eloquent orations of Cicero.

   • 1705, Abraham Cowley, translated by Nahum Tate, Cowley’s History of Plants: A Poem in Six Books, published 1795, Preface, page 20:

     I declaimed…against the use of exolete and interpolated repetitions of old fables.

2. (obsolete) That has lost its virtue; effete, insipid.
   • 1657, Richard Tomlinson (translator), Jean de Renou (author), A Medicinal Diſpenſatory‎^[1], page 283:

     The vulgar Carpobalſame…being…faint, rancid, exolet.

   • 1676, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, XI, page 708:

     How exolete Blood falls asunder.

   • 1684, an unknown translator of Théophile Bonet (author), Mercurius Compitalitius, chapter x, page 358:

     These Exoticks…are now and then deprived partly of their virtues and exolete.

3. (obsolete) (of flowers) Faded.
   • 1730–6, Nathan Bailey, An Universal Etymological English Dictionary (folio edition), “Exolete”:

     Exolete, faded, or withered, as flowers.

References

• “†E·xolete, a.” listed on page 416/1 of § 2 (E, ed. Henry Bradley) of volume III (D and E, 1897) of A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (1st ed.)

Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ek.soˈleː.te/, [ɛks̠ɔˈɫ̪eːt̪ɛ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ek.soˈle.te/, [eɡzoˈlɛːt̪e]

Participle

exolēte

1. vocative masculine singular of exolētus