EFFETE Synonyms: 201 Similar and Opposite Words

effete

adjective

i-ˈfēt

Definition of effete next

as in degenerate

having lost forcefulness, courage, or spirit the soft, effete society that marked the final years of the Roman empire

Synonyms & Similar Words

Relevance

as in weak

lacking bodily strength the outdoor adventure program takes effete youths and turns them into hardy campers

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

as in weakened

lacking strength of will or character the governor is too effete to take on the powerful special interests that really run this state

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

as in feminine

of or relating to a man who has or displays qualities traditionally considered more suitable for women wore a slightly more effete style of clothing in those days

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

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Recent Examples of effete In this view, other European immigrants were unsuitable for civilizing the frontier—Southern Europeans were effete and decadent while Eastern European Jews were hapless in the woods and better-suited to urban, commercial spaces. —

Livia Gershon, JSTOR Daily, 5 June 2025 Jesus Christ’s preaching of love and kindness and forgiveness is seen as weak and effete. —

Reader Commentary, Baltimore Sun, 11 Mar. 2025 This is bad enough, but then there’s the wide gulf of sensibility that separates Rock and Martin; the latter’s effete irony just doesn’t gel with Rock’s political trenchancy. —

Bill Wyman, Vulture, 28 Feb. 2025 The Portnoy in the pizza videos often has a preening, fussy, almost effete quality that complicates his butch self-image. —

Willy Staley, New York Times, 19 Feb. 2025 See All Example Sentences for effete

Recent Examples of Synonyms for effete

Adjective

Today, the urgent challenge before the royal family and many other institutions protected by mystique is whether the often degenerate select few in charge can still persuade the mass of people to remain beguiled and accept authority.

— Sean Williams, Harpers Magazine, 27 Jan. 2026
For reasons still not wholly understood, these ultradense objects—each about the mass of our star squeezed into a bizarre, city-sized ball of degenerate quantum matter—undergo starquakes in which the material on the surface shifts a bit like in an earthly tremor.

— Phil Plait, Scientific American, 22 Jan. 2026