With classes about to resume on campus, the moribund time of late summer is about to end. Caveat: it ends for the students and those faculty and staff working next semester; I’m away from teaching until perhaps Spring 2027 as I finish some scholarly writing. My retirement, such as it is, has not been moribund at all, even as I get to savor the Golden Hour in September from my back porch, not through a car’s windshield on a commute.
“Moribund” has a dreary sound, doesn’t it? The OED entry notes it means “at the point of death; in a dying state, close to death,” and that certainly describes our summer vacation now. At the same time, I thought that it also meant “stuck or stagnant,” and the entry online has a second definition of “displaying such a lack of vigour or vitality that recovery appears impossible.” Right on the money, again!
I wonder if the use of our word has become moribund? It was first recorded in the early 1700s; usage peaked in 1950 and has suffered a steady decline that appears irreversible. Funny thing, that: we are now about about the same usage frequency as the year 1900. The 20th century, so vital and dangerous in many ways, also served as the period of popularity for the word. I’ll hazard a guess that the reading public had better vocabularies then. Reading for pleasure, in these frantic times, seems moribund.
I like the term, because of its dreary, deathly sound but I doubt we’ll see it spring back to life as a popular word, in my lifetime.
Set aside your back-to-school plans for a moment to send in words or metaphors worth covering. Email me (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or leave a comment below. Want to write a guest entry? Let me know!
See all of our Metaphors of the Month here and Words of the Week here.
Image: Late Summer by Christian Kortum at Flickr.