Word of the Day

Friday, November 17, 2006

dotage

\DOH-tij\ , noun;

Feebleness of mind due to old age; senility.

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Quotes:

Pointing out that Cicero learned Greek in his seventies and Socrates took up playing the lyre in his dotage, Dad liked to say he would indeed someday consider retiring, when and if he finally got old.

-- James Dodson, Final Rounds

It wasn't a good joke, and, in his dotage, he made it far too often, but when I heard it for the first time I remember laughing and thinking, with pleasure, that I was catching on to the tricks adults played with words.

-- Rob Nixon, Dreambirds

Origin:

Dotage comes from the verb to dote, "to be weak-minded, silly, or foolish; to have the intellect impaired, especially by old age," from Middle English doten. One who is in his or her dotage is a dotard.