[f. prec. sb.] lit. and fig.
1. trans. To affect with atrophy, to starve.
1865. Mill, in Westm. Rev., XXVIII. 9. Organs are strengthened by exercise and atrophied by disuse.
1876. Hamerton, Intell. Life, II. v. 428. A constant and close pressure atrophies the higher mind.
2. intr. To become atrophied or abortive.
1865. Livingstone, Zambesi, xi. 222. The horns, mere stumps not a foot long, must have atrophied.
1883. G. Allen, Colin Clout’s Calendar, xxi. 121. As the fruit ripens, one of them [the seeds] almost always atrophies.
