deˈpauperated, ppl. a.
[f. prec. + -ed.]
Rendered poor, impoverished; reduced or deteriorated in quality, vigour, capacity, etc.
| 1666 J. Smith Old Age (1752) 95 The best blood itself..becomes weak and much depauperated. 1756 C. Lucas Ess. Waters II. 261 A languid, depauperated and broken state of the juices. 1870 C. B. Clarke in Macm. Mag. Nov. 48/2 The feeble, the sickly, and the depauperated should be weeded out in the struggle for existence. 1881 Huxley in Nature XXIII. 611 The fish is left in that lean and depauperated state. |
b. Bot., etc. Stunted or degenerate from want of nutriment; starved; imperfectly developed from any cause that produces results analogous to innutrition.
| 1830 Lindley Nat. Syst. Bot. 275 Flowers hermaphrodite, surrounded by bracteæ, the outer of which are petaloid and herbaceous, the inner depauperated and coloured. 1888 Athenæum 1 Sept. 293/3 The rocks of this age present only a depauperated flora and fauna. |