defunctive

English

Adjective

defunctive (comparative more defunctive, superlative most defunctive)

1. (archaic) funereal or deathly
   • 1601, William Shakespeare, The Phoenix and the Turtle:

     Let the priest in surplice white/That defunctive music can/ Be the death-divining swan/ Lest the requiem lack his right.

   • 1931, William Faulkner, Sanctuary, Library of America, published 1985, page 13:

     The road was now a black tunnel floored with the impalpable defunctive glare of the sand.

References

• “defunctive”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.