dotage

dote +‎ -age, from Middle English doten (“to dote”).

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈdoʊtɪdʒ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈdəʊtɪdʒ/

dotage (countable and uncountable, plural dotages)

1. Decline in judgment and other cognitive functions, associated with aging; senility.
   • 1841, Charles Dickens, chapter 1, in The Old Curiosity Shop:

     "More care!" said the old man. […] There were in his face marks of deep and anxious thought which convinced me that he could not be, as I had been at first inclined to suppose, in a state of dotage or imbecility.

2. Fondness or attentiveness, especially to an excessive degree.
   • 1598, William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, act 2, scene 3,

     CLAUDIO: And she is exceeding wise.

     DON PEDRO: In every thing but in loving Benedick. […] I would she had bestowed this dotage on me.

3. Foolish utterance(s); drivel.
   • Milton

     the sapless dotages of old Paris and Salamanca

• (loss of mental acuity associated with aging): second childhood

• dogate, goated, togaed

From doten +‎ -age.

• IPA^(key): /ˈdɔːtaːdʒ(ə)/

dotage (uncountable) (Late Middle English)

1. Behaviour that is stupid or ill-advised; ridiculousness or insanity:
   1. Ill-thought or fatuitous love or romantic feelings.
   2. Weakening of the mind due to age; dotage.
2. Disintegration, rotting, or collapsing.

• English: dotage

• “dōtāǧe (n.)” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-08-12.