[ad. L. exanimāt-us, pa. pple. of exanimāre: see next.]
1. Deprived of life, lifeless, dead; rarely of an inorganic substance = INANIMATE.
1552. Huloet, Exanimate or kylled, confectus.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., II. xii. 7. Ships, which had been wrecked late … stuck with carcases exanimate.
1635. Swan, Spec. M., ix. § 1 (1643), 469. Oftentimes by dust and knocks they [bears] are almost exanimate and without life.
1804. J. Grahame, Sabbath (1839), 23/2. The circling halo beam’d … Upon that face, clothed in a smile benign, Though yet exanimate.
1848. Miller, First Impr., ii. (1857), 23. It is a petrifaction—a fossil … an exanimate stone.
1858. Chamb. Jrnl., IX. 338. Thither, almost exanimate from fright … was he conveyed.
b. Lifeless in appearance; without respiration.
1619. R. Jones, Serm., in Phenix (1708), II. 490. They were exanimate; but whether that Fit held them only by way of Syncope, or [etc.].
1837. E. Howard, Old Commodore, I. 219. Drenched to the skin with sea-water, exanimate, collapsed, the Commodore, when the boat came alongside, was forced to be lifted on board.
1849. Lytton, Caxtons, XVIII. viii. Squills again closed his eyes, and became exanimate.
2. Deprived or destitute of animation or courage; spiritless.
c. 1534. trans. Pol. Verg. Eng. Hist. (Camden), I. 185. At whose fall the residew became so hartelesse and exanimate that … they were all slayne.
1668. Wilkins, Real Char., 253. Out of heart, crest-faln, exanimate.
1728. Thomson, Spring, 1049. The grey morn Lifts her pale lustre on the paler wretch Exanimate by love.
1808. J. Barlow, Columb., V. 853. Pale, curbed, exanimate, in dull despair.
1841. Fraser’s Mag., XXV. 217. The comparatively exanimate productions of a hundred moralists.
