Meaning

No longer in use or active, nor expected to be again..

Definitions by Sense

1. No longer in use or active, nor expected to be again.
2. (computing) Specifically, of a process: having terminated but not having been reaped (by its parent or an inheritor), and thus still occupying a process slot. See also zombie, zombie process.
3. (linguistics) (of a language) No longer spoken.
4. (now rare) Deceased, dead.
5. To make defunct.
6. The dead person (referred to).

Example Sentences

[T]he engineer must solve the mysteries of boiler accidents by studying defunct structures of many different types.

When a language dies members of the culture of which that language was once a part may attempt to hold on to their linguistic heritage, if not by the use of the defunct language itself, at least by the preservation of its script.

The organs, though defunct and dead before, / Break up their drowsy grave and newly move

Morgante at a venture shot an arrow, / Which pierced a pig precisely in the ear, / And passed unto the other side quite through; / So that the boar, defunct, lay tripped up near.

[…] he saw Robert Johnston, pannel, come out of the cott-house with the fork in his hand, and pass by Alexander Fall and the deponent; heard the pannell say, he had sticked the dog, and he would stick the whelps too; whereupon the pannell run after the defunct’s son with the fork in his hand, […]

A small tablet is fixt near the Altar, upon wᶜʰ the friends of yᵉ defunct lay their offerings in mony according to their own ability and the quality of the person deceased.

Word Forms

• more defunct
• most defunct
• defuncts
• defuncting
• defuncted

Synonyms for defunct

Related Words

When Should You Use Defunct?

Use defunct when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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