noun, verb
noun [U]
1 the process or result of being destroyed by natural causes or by not being cared for (= of decaying):
tooth decay * The landlord had let the building fall into decay. * The smell of death and decay hung over the town. * The decay of the wood will spread if it is not removed.
2 the gradual destruction of a society, an institution, a system, etc:
economic / moral / urban decay * the decay of the old industries
Part of speech: verb
1 to be destroyed gradually by natural processes; to destroy sth in this way
SYNROT:
[V] decaying leaves / teeth / food [also VN]
2 [V] if a building or an area decays, its condition slowly becomes worse:
decaying inner city areas
3 [V] to become less powerful and lose influence over people, society, etc:
decaying standards of morality
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for decay is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is decay a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, decay is tagged as verb.
Does decay appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — decay appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
