noun
definition
The process or result of being gradually decomposed.
definition
A deterioration of condition; loss of status or fortune.
verb
definition
To deteriorate, to get worse, to lose strength or health, to decline in quality.
example
The pair loved to take pictures in the decaying hospital on forty-third street.
definition
(of organic material) To rot, to go bad.
example
The cat's body decayed rapidly.
definition
(of an unstable atom) To change by undergoing fission, by emitting radiation, or by capturing or losing one or more electrons.
definition
(of a quantum system) To undergo optical decay, that is, to relax to a less excited state, usually by emitting a photon or phonon.
definition
Loss of airspeed due to drag.
definition
To cause to rot or deteriorate.
example
The extreme humidity decayed the wooden sculptures in the museum's collection in a matter of years.
Examples of decay in a Sentence
They reek of decay and death.
Some species rapidly change colour, and cause the decay of any others with which they come in contact.
From this time forward the city began to decay.
Though rebuilt, the building fell into decay after the Dissolution.
The rise of Neapolis (Shechem) in the neighbourhood caused the decay of Sebaste.
Its rise and development and decay deserve a more thorough study than they have yet received.
The loss to Spain was enormous, and from this act of the Dominican the commercial decay of Spain dates.
The explanation of this decay of interest does not lie upon the surface.
With the decay of her mining industries, Ouro Preto had become merely the political centre of the state.
Unfortunately it is rapidly falling into decay.
It appears, therefore, contemporaneously with Christianity, and is a sign of the world-weariness and deep religious need that mark the decay of the old world.
His reign, after a few passing years of barren successes, was a long story of political and military decay and disaster.
After a long period of decay he died on the 13th of September 1872.
After the overthrow of the dynasty of the Achaemenides a period of decay seems to have set in.
During the latter part of the Saxon period the numbers of the population of the country began to decay; this decay, however, was arrested by the Norman Conquest.
We think that the decay of interest in these writers involves a real loss, and that students of modern problems may do worse than read Ricardo and his school.
There was a grammar school at Midhurst, which at one time had enjoyed considerable reputation, but which had fallen into decay.
The same process of decay was greatly promoted by the Arab conquest of Persia, achieved through the victory of Kadisiya in 636-637.
Their wars exhausted the country, and before the end of the century it was in the greatest decay.
In 1752 its capital was situated on the right bank of the Guapore river and was named Villa Bella da Santissima Trindade de Matto Grosso, but in 1820 the seat of government was removed to Cuyaba and Villa Bella has fallen into decay.
In the following century the power of the Ahoms began to decay, alike from internal dissensions and the pressure of outside invaders.
In some parts of the river 300 naouras have been counted within a space of 130 m., but of late years many have fallen into decay.
Where the valley is still cultivated, the jerd, a skin raised by oxen, is gradually being substituted for the naoura, no more of the latter being constructed to take the place of those which fall into decay.
Such injuries are apt to occur in syphilitic endarteritis, or senile arterial decay, whereby an artery may be blocked permanently, as if with an embolus, and the area supplied by it, in so far as it was dependent upon this vessel, deprived of nutrition.
On the Lower Murray the body is placed on a platform of sticks and left to decay.
It has been held that animal sacrifice is the primitive form and that the decay of totemism or lack of domestic animals has brought about the substitution of a human victim; but it has also been urged that in many cases animal victims are treated like human beings and must consequently have replaced them, that human beings are smeared with the blood of sacrifice, and must therefore have themselves been sacrificed before a milder regime allowed an animal to replace them.
The assumption that the decay of Assyria awoke the national feeling of independence is perhaps justified by those events which made the greatest impression upon the compiler, and an account is given of Josiah's religious reforms, based upon a source apparently identical with that which described the work of Jehoash.
In consequence, however, of the frequent violence of the southwesterly gales and other causes, the communication ceased in the middle of the 19th century, and the artificial harbour designed by John Rennie has gradually fallen into decay.
Looking at the surface of the life of Spain, he might well believe in its decay.
Some of them lay the blame on the papacy; and it is true that the papacy had contributed towards the decay of the Crusades when it had allowed its own particular interests to overbear the general welfare of Christianity, and had dignified with the name and the benefits of a Crusade its own political war against the Hohenstaufen.
With the moral and ecclesiastical decay of the papacy in the 9th and 10th centuries much of its territorial authority slipped from its grasp; and by the middle of the I ith century its rule was not recognized beyond Rome and the immediate vicinity.
Kolzum retained some of the trade of Egypt with Arabia and countries farther east long after the canal was closed, but by the 13th century it was in ruins and Suez itself, which had supplanted it, was also, according to an Arab historian, in decay.
The war that followed marks an epoch in the decay of the Ottoman Empire and in the expansion of Russia.
Uncombined sulphur is injurious, and often leads to the decay of vulcanized goods, but an excess of sulphur is generally required in order to ensure perfect vulcanization.
It was garrisoned at the period of the Jacobite rebellions of 1715 and 1745, fell into decay early in the 19th century, and is now the property of the crown, the duke of Argyll being hereditary keeper.
Thus an individual living body is not only constantly changing its substance, but its size and form are undergoing continual modifications, the end of which is the death and decay of that individual; the continuation of the kind being secured by the detachment of portions which tend to run through the same cycle of forms as the parent.
The mushroom is a semi-deliquescent fungus which rapidly falls into putridity in decay, whilst the champignon dries up into a leathery substance in the sun, but speedily revives and takes its original form again after the first shower.
The rise of the mineral saltworks of Cheshire led to its decline in the 18th century, and later the renewed importance of Southampton completed its decay.
These walls all fell into decay long since; at places they were used as brick quarries, and finally the great reforming governor, (1868-1872), Midhat Pasha, following the example set by many European cities, undertook to destroy them altogether and utilize the free space thus obtained as a public park and esplanade.
Although it cannot be said that the science of medicine was advanced at Salerno, still its decline was arrested at a time when every other branch of learning was rapidly falling into decay; and there can be no doubt that the observation of patients in hospitals, and probably clinical instruction, were made use of in learning and teaching.
The fall of the republic was accompanied by interruption of trade and decay of manufacture, and in the last years of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century the glass-making of Murano was at a very low ebb.
Soon after this, decay set in.
It is only when these conditions are attended to that decay and nitrification of dung, guano, fish-meal, sulphate of ammonia and other manures take place, and the constituents which they contain become available to the crops for whose benefit they have been applied to the land.
After the decay of the roots some of the unchanged bacteria are left in the soil, where they remain ready to infect a new leguminous crop.
The growing crops should be ploughed in before flowering occurs; they should not be buried deeply, since decay and nitrification take place most rapidly and satisfactorily when there is free access of air to the decaying material.
What remains to describe is little but death and decay.
It was then dismantled and fell into decay.
To prevent tooth decay and gum disease it is necessary to have regular dental visits.
Centuries of neglect followed, and the ancient port was almost choked up, though the value of the fisheries saved the town from utter decay.
A few had been converted to apartments, but a recent wave of historical consciousness had temporarily halted the decay.