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.

I’d absorbed the cultural cliche of the neurasthenic poetess in The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Rudolf Besier’s Broadway hit that spawned three films and seven TV dramas.

From The Guardian • Feb. 15, 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