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Derelict vs Dilapidate - What's the difference?

derelict | dilapidate |

As an adjective derelict

is abandoned, forsake; given up or forsaken by the natural owner or guardian; (of a ship) abandoned at sea, dilapidated, neglected; (of a spacecraft) abandoned in outer space.

As a noun derelict

is property abandoned by its former owner, especially a ship abandoned at sea.

As a verb dilapidate is

to fall into ruin or disuse.

derelict

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Abandoned, forsake; given up or forsaken by the natural owner or guardian; (of a ship) abandoned at sea, dilapidated, neglected; (of a spacecraft) abandoned in outer space.
    • There was a derelict ship on the island.
  • * Jeremy Taylor
    • The affections which these exposed or derelict children bear to their mothers, have no grounds of nature or assiduity but civility and opinion.
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2011 , title=When and where did NASA's derelict satellite go down? citation
  • Negligent in performing a duty.
  • Lost; adrift; hence, wanting; careless; neglectful; unfaithful.
  • * Burke
    • They easily prevailed, so as to seize upon the vacant, unoccupied, and derelict minds of his friends; and instantly they turned the vessel wholly out of the course of his policy.
  • * John Buchanan
    • A government which is either unable or unwilling to redress such wrongs is derelict to its highest duties.

    Synonyms

    * (abandoned) abandoned

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Property abandoned by its former owner, especially a ship abandoned at sea.
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year=1907 , title=(The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses) , author=Robert W. Service , chapter=(The Cremation of Sam McGee) , passage=Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay; / It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May". / And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum; / Then "Here", said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."}}
  • (dated) An abandoned or forsaken person; an outcast.
  • * 1911 Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax” (Norton 2005, p.1364):
    • A rather pathetic figure, the Lady Frances, a beautiful woman, still in fresh middle age, and yet, by a strange chance, the last derelict of what only twenty years ago was a goodly fleet.
  • A homeless and/or jobless person; a person who is (perceived as) negligent in their personal affairs and hygiene.
  • * 1988 , Jonathan D. Spence, The Question of Hu :
    • As they hunt, the Archers and Duval find many derelicts and ne'er-do-wells in many parts of Paris.
  • * 2002 , in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of D. H. Lawrence'', ''The Boy in the Bush , edited by Paul Eggert, page 22:
    • If they're lazy derelicts and ne'er-do-wells she'll eat 'em up. But she's waiting for real men — British to the bone —
  • * 2004 , Katherine V. W. Stone, From Widgets to Digits: Employment Regulation , page 280:
    • We see the distinction at work when victims of natural disasters and terrorist attacks are treated more generously than derelicts and drug addicts.

    See also

    * flotsam * jetsam * lagan * salvage

    dilapidate

    English

    Verb

    (dilapidat)
  • To fall into ruin or disuse.
  • To cause to become ruined or put into disrepair.
  • * Blackstone
    • If the bishop, parson, or vicar, etc., dilapidates the buildings, or cuts down the timber of the patrimony
  • * 1883 , , chapter VI
    • In the last days of autumn he had whitewashed the chalet, painted the doors, windows, and veranda, repaired the roof and interior, and improved the place so much that the landlord had warned him that the rent would be raised at the expiration of his twelvemonth's tenancy, remarking that a tenant could not reasonably expect to have a pretty, rain-tight dwelling-house for the same money as a hardly habitable ruin. Smilash had immediately promised to dilapidate it to its former state at the end of the year.
  • (figuratively) To squander or waste.
  • * Wood
    • The patrimony of the bishopric of Oxon was much dilapidated .

    Related terms

    * lapidate