I. rot 1 /rɒt $ rɑːt/ BrE AmE verb ( past tense and past participle rotted , present participle rotting )
[ Language: Old English ; Origin: rotian ]
1 . [intransitive and transitive] to decay by a gradual natural process, or to make something do this:
Candy will rot your teeth.
The trees were cut and left to rot.
rot away
All the woodwork was rotting away.
2 . rot in hell/jail to suffer or be punished for a long time – used especially when you are angry with someone:
I hope the people who did this rot in hell.
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THESAURUS
▪ decay to be slowly destroyed by a natural chemical process – use this especially about natural things such as wood or plants, or about teeth:
The leaves decay and enrich the soil.
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He had bad breath and decaying teeth.
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The fabric slowly began to decay.
▪ rot to decay. Rot is less formal than decay and is more common in everyday English:
The fruit was left to rot on the ground.
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rotting teeth
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Most of the wood under the paint had rotted.
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the smell of rotting vegetation (=decaying leaves and plants)
▪ go off British English if food goes off, it starts to smell bad and is no longer be safe to eat:
I think the milk’s gone off.
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The meat smells as if it's gone off.
▪ spoil if food spoils, it starts to decay, so that it is no longer safe to eat. Spoil is more formal and is less common in everyday British English than go off :
Food left in the sun will quickly start to spoil.
▪ go mouldy British English , moldy American English to begin to have a soft green or black substance growing on the surface of the food, so that it is not good to eat any more:
Ugh, the cheese has gone mouldy!
▪ decompose formal to decay – use this especially about dead plants or flesh:
leaves decomposing on the forest floor
▪ putrefy formal to decay and have a very bad smell – use this especially about flesh or plants:
After two days, the body was already beginning to putrefy.
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putrefying meat
▪ biodegrade to decay naturally into substances that do not harm the environment – use this especially about man-made materials and chemicals:
Unlike many other materials, plastic does not biodegrade.
II. rot 2 BrE AmE noun
1 . [uncountable] the natural process of decaying, or the part of something that has decayed:
the smell of rot
wood that is soft with rot
⇨ ↑ dry rot
2 . [singular, uncountable] a state in which something becomes bad or does not work as well as it should:
He criticized the talk shows as ‘cultural rot’.
stop the rot British English (=stop a bad situation getting worse)
The team has enough good players to stop the rot.
the rot set in British English (=a situation started to get worse)
It was after he left the company that the rot set in.
3 . [uncountable] British English old-fashioned nonsense:
You do talk rot!