Words / C / General

caducity

noun/kəˈdjuːsɪti/

C2CEFR level
96/100Rarity: very rare
FormalRegister

The quality of being perishable, frail, or fleeting, especially the infirmity of old age.

There is a certain melancholy caducity to blossom, which dazzles precisely because it cannot last.

Similar: frailty, transitoriness

Origin: From Latin caducus 'falling, perishable', from cadere 'to fall'.

Topic: decay in General English

Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.

Get words like caducity on your lock screen, a few a day, with review that makes them stick.

Download on the App Store Lexfall puts a new word on your home and lock screen through widgets, so you learn without opening an app. Free to download. After a free trial, a subscription unlocks every field. Built for iPhone, iOS 15.1 or later.
QR code that opens Lexfall on the App Store
On a computer?Scan with your iPhone camera.

More general words: decay