Safire's word heaven

[Mark A Mandel]

Last weekend (Sun., April 14) William Safire wrote in his column about
words that are not completely out of use but are getting there, and
lamented that no dictionary seems to have a label for this state. There
is a word, though, that describes it exactly, "obsolescent", and I'm
pretty sure I recall seeing that word, and in fact learning it, in its
usage as a label in a dictionary, "Obsolesc." Does this ring any bells
with anyone?

-- Mark A. Mandel
   Linguist at Large