Definition of "inanition" in Englisch

noun

1. The act of removing the contents of something; the state of being empty.

   • 1643, William Slatyer, The Compleat Christian, London, for the author, The Second Part of the Catechism, Section 5, p. 110, 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.

2. (medicine) A state of advanced lack of adequate nutrition, food, or water or a physiological inability to utilize them, with resulting weakness.

   • 1955, Samuel Beckett and Patrick Bowles (translators), Molloy by Samuel Beckett, Part I, in Three Novels, New York: Grove, 1959, p. 202, And I who a fortnight before would joyfully have reckoned how long I could survive on the provisions that remained, probably with reference to the question of calories and vitamins, and established in my head a series of menus asymptotically approaching nutritional zero, was now content to note feebly that I should soon be dead of inanition.

3. (philosophy) A spiritual emptiness or lack of purpose or will to live, akin to nausea in existentialist philosophy.