Word Meanings - DECAY - Book Publishers vocabulary database

To pass gradually from a sound, prosperous, or perfect state, to one of imperfection, adversity, or dissolution; to waste away; to decline; to fail; to become weak, corrupt, or disintegrated; to rot; to perish; as, a tree decays; fortunes decay;

Additional info about word: DECAY

To pass gradually from a sound, prosperous, or perfect state, to one of imperfection, adversity, or dissolution; to waste away; to decline; to fail; to become weak, corrupt, or disintegrated; to rot; to perish; as, a tree decays; fortunes decay; hopes decay. Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay. Goldsmith.

Possible synonyms: (Same meaning words of DECAY)

• Consume
• Use
• appropriate
• burn
• oat up
• devour
• spend
• squander
• assimilate
• occupy
• absorb
• employ
• utilize
• waste
• destroy
• spoil
• ravage
• expend
• pine
• wither
• decay
• Consumption
• Decline
• expenditure
• decrement
• lessening
• decrease
• Corruption
• Decomposition
• putrescence
• adulteration
• dev
• pravity
• rottenness
• defilement
• deterioration
• perversion
• debasement
• taint
• contamination
• putrefaction
• Declension
• Decay
• decadence
• degeneration
• fall
• Die
• Expire
• depart
• perish
• decline
• decease
• disappear
• languish
• wane
• sink
• fade
• cease

Possible antonyms: (opposite words of DECAY)

• Rise
• grow
• increase
• flourish
• luxuriate
• vegetate
• expand
• enlarge
• Increase
• amplify
• augment
• extend
• Spare
• conserve
• preserve
• indemnify

Related words: (words related to DECAY)

• DISAPPEARING
  p. pr. & vb. n. of Disappear. Disappearing carriage , a carriage for heavy coast guns on which the gun is raised above the parapet for firing and upon discharge is lowered behind the parapet for protection. The standard type of disappearing
• DECAY
  To pass gradually from a sound, prosperous, or perfect state, to one of imperfection, adversity, or dissolution; to waste away; to decline; to fail; to become weak, corrupt, or disintegrated; to rot; to perish; as, a tree decays; fortunes decay;
• WASTEL
  A kind of white and fine bread or cake; -- called also wastel bread, and wastel cake. Roasted flesh or milk and wasted bread. Chaucer. The simnel bread and wastel cakes, which were only used at the tables of the highest nobility. Sir W. Scott.
• APPROPRIATENESS
  The state or quality of being appropriate; peculiar fitness. Froude.
• CONSUMPTION
  A progressive wasting away of the body; esp., that form of wasting, attendant upon pulmonary phthisis and associated with cough, spitting of blood, hectic fever, etc.; pulmonary phthisis; -- called also pulmonary consumption. Consumption of the
• WASTETHRIFT
  A spendthrift.
• CORRUPTIONIST
  One who corrupts, or who upholds corruption. Sydney Smith.
• SPENDTHRIFT
  One who spends money profusely or improvidently; a prodigal; one who lavishes or wastes his estate. Also used figuratively. A woman who was a generous spendthrift of life. Mrs. R. H. Davis.
• DESTROYABLE
  Destructible. Plants . . . scarcely destroyable by the weather. Derham.
• SPENDER
  One who spends; esp., one who spends lavishly; a prodigal; a spendthrift.
• ENLARGEMENT
  1. The act of increasing in size or bulk, real or apparent; the state of being increased; augmentation; further extension; expansion. 2. Expansion or extension, as of the powers of the mind; ennoblement, as of the feelings and character; as, an
• ADULTERATION
  1. The act of adulterating; corruption, or debasement (esp. of food or drink) by foreign mixture. The shameless adulteration of the coin. Prescott. 2. An adulterated state or product.
• PERISHMENT
  The act of perishing. Udall.
• WASTEBOARD
  See 3
• SQUANDER
  scatter, to squander, Prov. E. swatter, Dan. sqvatte, Sw. sqvätta to squirt, sqvättra to squander, Icel. skvetta to squirt out, to throw 1. To scatter; to disperse. Our squandered troops he rallies. Dryden. 2. To spend lavishly or profusely;
• DEPARTURE
  The desertion by a party to any pleading of the ground taken by him in his last antecedent pleading, and the adoption of another. Bouvier. (more info) 1. Division; separation; putting away. No other remedy . . . but absolute departure. Milton.
• PUTRESCENCE
  The state of being putrescent; putrescent matter.
• ABSORBING
  Swallowing, engrossing; as, an absorbing pursuit. -- Ab*sorb"ing, adv.
• DEPARTMENT
  1. Act of departing; departure. Sudden departments from one extreme to another. Wotton. 2. A part, portion, or subdivision. 3. A distinct course of life, action, study, or the like; appointed sphere or walk; province. Superior to Pope in Pope's
• LESSENER
  One who, or that which, lessens. His wife . . . is the lessener of his pain, and the augmenter of his pleasure. J. Rogers .
• ALKALI WASTE
  Waste material from the manufacture of alkali; specif., soda waste.
• UNEMPLOYMENT
  Quality or state of being not employed; -- used esp. in economics, of the condition of various social classes when temporarily thrown out of employment, as those engaged for short periods, those whose trade is decaying, and those least competent.
• REINCREASE
  To increase again.
• OVERWASTED
  Wasted or worn out; Drayton.
• TRANSPARENT
  transparere to be transparent; L. trans across, through + parere to 1. Having the property of transmitting rays of light, so that bodies can be distinctly seen through; pervious to light; diaphanous; pellucid; as, transparent glass; a transparent
• SELF-DESTROYER
  One who destroys himself; a suicide.
• DESPEND
  To spend; to squander. See Dispend. Some noble men in Spain can despend Howell.
• SELF-DEVOURING
  Devouring one's self or itself. Danham.