hebetude

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The Word of the Day for August 2 is:

hebetude   \HEB-uh-tood ("oo" as in "food")\   noun 
     : lethargy, dullness 

Example sentence: 
     As the professor droned on and on in the overheated lecture 
hall, Kim was overcome with such hebetude that she had to fight 
to keep her eyes open. 

Did you know? 
     The dullness of "hebetude" tends to lean toward mental 
dullness, often marked by laziness or torpor. As such, it was a 
good word for one Queenslander correspondent, who wrote in a 
letter to the editor of the Weekend Australian of "an epidemic 
of hebetude among young people who . . . are placing too great a 
reliance on electronic devices to do their thinking and 
remembering." "Hebetude" comes from Late Latin "hebetudo," which 
means pretty much the same thing as our word. It is also closely 
related to the Latin word for "dull" -- "hebes," which has 
extended meanings such as "obtuse," "doltish," and "stupid." 
Other "hebe-" words in English include "hebetudinous" ("marked 
by hebetude") and "hebetate" ("to make dull").