neurasthenic
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
People have always read fiction hoping to better themselves, but Marcel Proust, a sickly, snobbish neurasthenic so sensitive that he worked and slept in a cork-lined bedroom, seems a dubious source for life lessons.
From Slate • Mar. 26, 2021
With a neurasthenic mother now in charge, the Nichols family hobbled forward, neither well-to-do nor destitute.
From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 26, 2021
Macon is known familiarly as Milkman, a bitter nickname stemming from the widespread knowledge that his unhappy, neurasthenic mother, “the daughter of the richest Negro doctor in town,” breast-fed him long past babyhood.
From New York Times • Aug. 6, 2019
The narrator appears to be only a step from a nervous breakdown, but the neurasthenic sensitivity is gestural, unearned, a bit melodramatic.
From The New Yorker • May 29, 2017
Had Izzy been a different kind of child, this might have led her to be cautious, or neurasthenic, or paranoid.
From "Little Fires Everywhere" by Celeste Ng
