Meaning & use
dissoluteness
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Meanings
noununcountabledisapproving
The quality of living an immoral, wasteful life, with heavy drinking, careless pleasure-seeking and no self-control.
Grammar: Never takes an or a plural: the dissoluteness of the court.
Patterns
- the dissoluteness of someone
- a life of dissoluteness
The novel exposes the dissoluteness of the aristocracy.
His dissoluteness cost him his health and his friends.
Reformers condemned the dissoluteness of the city's nightlife.
noununcountableold-fashioned
Behavior that shows a lack of moral restraint, in a general or historical sense.
Grammar: Usually describes a whole period or society, not a single act.
Patterns
- accuse someone of dissoluteness
Historians describe the dissoluteness of the late empire.
Critics accused the poet of dissoluteness.
The priest warned against the dissoluteness of the age.
Common combinations
- moral dissoluteness
- The preacher attacked the moral dissoluteness of the town.
- a life of dissoluteness
- He drifted into a life of dissoluteness.
- dissoluteness and decay
- The book is a study of dissoluteness and decay.
- public dissoluteness
- The newspaper condemned public dissoluteness.
Synonyms and how they differ
- debauchery
- Debauchery is more common and more vivid, stressing indulgence in vice, while dissoluteness stresses lack of restraint.
- dissipation
- Dissipation stresses wasting your energy and money in pleasure, while dissoluteness stresses moral looseness.
- licentiousness
- Licentiousness focuses on sexual immorality, whereas dissoluteness is broader.
- decadence
- Decadence suggests luxury and decline in a society, while dissoluteness names the lack of self-control.
Opposites
Word family
- dissolute adjective
- lacking moral restraint
- dissolutely adverb
- in a morally loose way
- dissolution noun
- the ending of a group or agreement
Commonly confused: dissoluteness or dissolution? dissoluteness or dissolve?
dissoluteness vs dissolution
Dissolution means the breaking up or ending of something such as a marriage or parliament, while dissoluteness is moral looseness.
dissoluteness vs dissolve
Dissolve means to mix into a liquid or to end, and is not related to moral behavior.
Practice
The historian blamed the empire's fall partly on the ____ of its ruling class.
Choose one answer.
Dissoluteness means moral looseness and wasteful living. Dissolution means the formal ending of something, so it does not fit the idea of immoral habits.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “dissoluteness”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.