n. pl. atÂ·roÂ·phies. 1  1. A wasting or decrease in size of a body organ, tissue, or part owing to disease, injury, or lack of use: muscular atrophy of a person affected with paralysis. 2  2. A wasting away, deterioration, or diminution: intellectual atrophy.
August 2004: The Statue of Liberty reopens for the first time since Sept. 11, 2001. The Statue of Liberty reopens with monitors that show emergency exits. At the bottom of every monitor is a scrolling message: âIf you see something, say something.â.
1530, eponymous, from John Duns Scotus (circa 1265â1308). Scotus was ironically a well-known Scottish thinker. His followers, however, opposed the philosophers of the Renaissance, and thus dunce was first used to describe someone rejecting new knowledge in 1530; later, any stupid person.