"defunct" vs. "deceased" vs. "departed"

Question

After reading some dictionaries I realized that these three words aren't perfectly interchangeable, even if I cannot exactly recognize their differences.

Specifically I don't understand whether "defunct" is used in reference to dead persons or not—it seems to be more appropriate in reference to abstract things ("a defunct argument", "a defunct story")—, and what the contexts are in which we should use "deceased" or "departed".

So, suppose I want to ask to a person if a their relative has died, how can I ask without being disrespectful?

• Is/has your sister defunct?

• Is/has your sister deceased?

• Is/has your sister departed?

Answer 1

Let's begin by confirming your first assumption: you're correct that defunct would not be used to refer to a person, though the dictionary definition might make you think otherwise:

de·funct adj.

Having ceased to exist or live: a defunct political organization.

Though the definition sounds like it could describe a person, you'll note that the example sentence refers to a non-living entity, and I can't imagine native speakers using defunct to describe a person except in a satirical sense.

Now, as for deceased and departed (and your verb tenses). Deceased is definitely appropriate to be used with people. However it is a state of being, not an action, so you would say:

Is your sister deceased?

What you're asking is is your sister currently in the state of being deceased. If you used has you would be saying has your sister deceased recently? and we don't talk like that; you could say has your sister died recently, but we don't use deceased as a verb like that.

[As an interesting aside, while we don't use decease in that manner, we do use predecease (meaning to die before someone else that way). For example, Mary predeceased her older brothers, Jim and Harry.]

Now, as for departed. Departed can be used in the context of people's deaths, but not in the sentence you've got there. If I heard:

Has your sister departed?

I'd wonder if she'd left for the train station yet, and if I heard:

Is your sister departed?

I'd have no idea what was meant.

The way we use departed in this frame of reference is in common phrases, such as the dearly departed. This has the clear meaning of loved ones who have passed away to native speakers.

However in conversation we tend to use euphemisms to avoid touchy subjects, so probably the most common and socially acceptable sentence would be:

Has your sister passed away?

Answer 2

None of these is really suitable for asking this delicate question.*

Defunct, as you say, is rarely used of persons.

Deceased is mostly legal or official. It is used as an attributive adjective or as a nominal, but rarely as a predicate adjective.

I leave my library to JohnB, the son of my deceased uncle WilliamB.
According to the police, the deceased is a white male of middle age.

Departed is quite old-fashioned. It is used mostly as a nominal, and my impression is that it is mostly employed now at funerals, by the presiding minister.

The most common verb in US euphemistic speech today is probably pass away or in recent years simply pass. The participle is not used much, however, so you should say

Has your sister passed away?

But in most circumstances I would think it more graceful to ask

Is your sister still alive?

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*I myself use die and dead, but I am notoriously crude.