Definition of "atrophy" []

• Pathology A wasting or decrease in size of a body organ, tissue, or part owing to disease, injury, or lack of use: muscular atrophy of a person affected with paralysis. (noun)
• A wasting away, deterioration, or diminution: intellectual atrophy. (noun)
• To cause to wither or deteriorate; affect with atrophy. (verb-transitive)
• To waste away; wither or deteriorate. (verb-intransitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Infantile paralysis, which often appears suddenly, muscular atrophy, which develops slowly, _progressive and chronic atrophy_ of the muscles, are also forms of muscular disease, combined with destruction of the accompanying nerve tissue."
• "His mother explained that his disease, spinal muscular atrophy, is gradually deteriorating his neuromuscular system so that every few months, he loses more of his ability to move."
• "Our country languishes today in atrophy from pay to play politics."