defunct

From Old French defunct (French défunt), from Latin dēfunctus, past participle of dēfungor (“to finish, discharge”).

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /dɪˈfʌŋkt/
• (US) also IPA^(key): /ˌdiˈfʌŋkt/

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• Rhymes: -ʌŋkt

defunct (comparative more defunct, superlative most defunct)

1. (now rare) Deceased, dead.
   • 1599, William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:

     The organs, though defunct and dead before, / Break up their drowsy grave and newly move

   • 1820 February (date written; published 30 July 1823)​, Luigi Pulci, “The Morgante Maggiore of Pulci”, in Lord Byron, transl., The Complete Poetical Works of Lord Byron […], New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, published November 1907, →OCLC, canto I, stanza LXIII, page 560, column 2:

     Morgante at a venture shot an arrow, / Which pierced a pig precisely in the ear, / And passed unto the other side quite through; / So that the boar, defunct, lay tripped up near.

2. No longer in use or active, nor expected to be again.
   1. (business) No longer in business or service, nor expected to be again.
3. (computing) Specifically, of a process: having terminated but not having been reaped (by its parent or an inheritor), and thus still occupying a process slot. See also zombie, zombie process.
4. (linguistics) (of a language) No longer spoken.

• (no longer in use): antiquated, disused, outdated; see also Thesaurus:obsolete

defunct (third-person singular simple present defuncts, present participle defuncting, simple past and past participle defuncted)

1. To make defunct.

defunct

1. The dead person (referred to).
   • 1817 September, in Blackwood's Edinburgh magazine, volume 1, page 617:

     […] he saw Robert Johnston, pannel, come out of the cott-house with the fork in his hand, and pass by Alexander Fall and the deponent; heard the pannell say, he had sticked the dog, and he would stick the whelps too; whereupon the pannell run after the defunct’s son with the fork in his hand, […]

• function
• bankrupt

From French défunt.

defunct m (plural defuncți)

1. deceased