Moribund

Approaching death; dying.

I came across mori­bund in Thomas Cleary’s intro­duc­tion to the Shamb­ha­la edi­tion of The Art Of War. I’ve picked up the mean­ing by con­text and real­ized I had only the vaguest sense of its actu­al mean­ing. In usage it describes dys­func­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions, dull speak­ers, and polit­i­cal careers after a scan­dal. The more I thought about it, the more I real­ized that I did­n’t real­ly know what it meant beyond it being a word asso­ci­at­ed with fail­ure. Of course, that’s what dic­tio­nar­ies are for.