dilapidation [LME] Late Latin dilapidationem meant ‘squandering, wastefulness’, and this is the sense in which it first came into English. However, the Latin was formed from dilapidare ‘to scatter as if throwing stones, throw away, destroy’, formed from di- ‘asunder’ and lapidare ‘throw stones’ from lapis ‘stone’ (see also lapis lazuli at place to word (eponyms)), and by the time the verb dilapidate [L16th] appeared it was being used literally of partially ruined buildings. Dilapidated was being used in a more general sense from the early 19th century.