faded

1. 1
   adjective

   Having lost some of its former vividness and color.

   Like a bright shirt that turns pale after being washed a hundred times.

   The faded photograph showed a couple standing outside a farmhouse.

   Decades of sunlight had left the wallpaper faded and dull.

   Similarbleached, discolored, pale, washed-out, faint

   Oppositevivid, bright, brilliant

   Note

   Here the past participle of fade has settled into a true adjective for cloth, paint or ink that light and wear have dulled. Because it is a participle at heart, it compares with more and most (more faded, most faded) rather than with -er. The NTSB's 2024 report on the Tishomingo intersection crash uses it of road markings: the stop line "had a faded appearance but remained visible."

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of fade.

   The ink on the old letter had faded almost to nothing.

   Applause faded as the lights dimmed over the stage.

   Note

   One regular -ed form does both jobs: the simple past (the applause faded) and the participle after have (the ink had faded). Most senses of fade are intransitive, so a passive works only with the transitive ones. A golfer's shot can be faded, and so can a team that bettors bet against. Once the participle settles before a noun, it becomes the adjective of worn color.

3. 3
   adjectivefiguratively

   Having lost some of its former strength or vigor.

   Like an old engine that still turns over but no longer has its original force.

   The faded grandeur of the once-great hotel was obvious at a glance.

   Critics wrote at length about the actor's faded star power.

   Similardiminished, waning

   Oppositeundiminished, flourishing

   Note

   Color loss becomes a metaphor for lost power: the color sense carried over to fame, grandeur and memory. A faded rock star is past his prime, and faded memories are dim but can still come back into focus. Said of a person, it means diminished, not intoxicated. Keep it apart from the drug slang, which usually needs a setting such as get faded to come through.

4. 4
   adjectiveslangUS

   Intoxicated by drugs; high or stoned.

   Half the crowd looked faded before the headliner even came on.

   She was so faded she forgot where she parked the car.

   Similarhigh, stoned, wasted, baked, lit

   Oppositesober

   Note

   A party word from American slang, far from the gentle decline of the other adjective senses. It sits after get or be. Farley Katz, writing in The New Yorker in 2015, has his twenty-year-old self admire a festival-goer who knows how to "get faded like a champ." Keep it to casual talk. Out of context, a listener may hear "past its prime" instead.

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