Definitions for Decay

• Definition
• Anagrams (53)

Decay de·cay

Spelling: [dih-key]

IPA: /dɪˈkeɪ/

Decay is a 5 letter English word. It's valid Scrabble word worth 11 points. It's valid Words with friends word worth 11 points.

You can make 53 anagrams from letters in Decay (acdey).

Definitions for Decay

noun

1. decomposition; rot:
2. a gradual falling into an inferior condition; progressive decline:
3. decline in or loss of strength, health, intellect, etc.:
4. Also called disintegration, radioactive decay. Physics. a radioactive process in which a nucleus undergoes spontaneous transformation into one or more different nuclei and simultaneously emits radiation, loses electrons, or undergoes fission.
5. Aerospace. the progressive, accelerating reduction in orbital parameters, particularly apogee and perigee, of a spacecraft due to atmospheric drag.

verb (used with object)

1. to cause to decay or decompose; rot:

verb (used without object)

1. to become decomposed; rot:
2. to decline in excellence, prosperity, health, etc.; deteriorate.
3. Physics. (of a radioactive nucleus) to change spontaneously into one or more different nuclei in a process in which atomic particles, as alpha particles, are emitted from the nucleus, electrons are captured or lost, or fission takes place.

Origin of Decay

1425-75; (v.) late Middle English decayen Old North French decair, equivalent to de- de- + cair to fall Vulgar Latin *cadēre, for Latin cadere; (noun) late Middle Engli

Examples for Decay

To get it all you must live there, to be interpenetrated by its glory of decay.

Their decay proceeded without a ready supply of oxygen, producing hydrocarbons like methane instead of oxygen-bearing molecules.

Is the something else, the decay of dead citizens in the vaults below?

In the summer heat, the smell of decay was beginning to spread.

She was aware of the creeping fret, the poisons and obstructions of decay.

Witnesses say there were at least six bodies piled together inside this one tiled room where the air is poisonous with decay.

To begin with there is the general indifference to the decay of democracy.

Theaters were quickly abandoned, left to decay and sometimes destroyed.

Will you have nothing to remember him by but his ruin and decay?

Old age and decay, bad enough in themselves, we intensify by our habits of mind.