Effete vs Sterile - What's the difference?
effete | sterile |
(label) Of substances, quantities etc: exhausted, spent, worn-out.
*, II.4.1.v:
Of people: lacking strength or vitality; feeble, powerless, impotent.
*
Decadent, weak through self-indulgence.
Effeminate.
*
(uncomparable) Unable to reproduce (or procreate).
.
; free from all living or viable microorganisms.
As adjectives the difference between effete and sterile
is that effete is (label) of substances, quantities etc: exhausted, spent, worn-out while sterile is sterile, barren, unprolific, infertile.effete
English
Alternative forms
*Adjective
(en adjective)- Nature is not effœte , as he saith, or so lavish, to bestow all her gifts upon an age, but hath reserved some for posterity, to shew her power, that she is still the same, and not old or consumed.
- Amid the effete monarchies and princedoms of feudal Europe, morally and materially exhausted by the Thirty Years' War, the only hope of resistance to France lay in the little Republic of merchants, Holland.
- a good-humored, effete boy brought up by maiden aunts.
