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ecline; 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.

Fallen, as to physical or social condition; affected with decay; rotten; as, decayed vegetation or vegetables; a decayed fortune or gentleman. -- De*cay"ed*ness, n.

A causer of decay. [R.]

Premature decay.

greatly. Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay. Goldsmith.

r a new use; -- sometimes followed by to or for. For nature, always in the right, To your decays adapts my sight. Swift. Appeals adapted to his [man's] whole nature. Angus. Streets ill adapted for the residence of wealthy persons. Macaulay.

An old name for severwal species of Polyporus, corky fungi growing on decaying wood.

A loss or decay of sight, from loss of power in the optic nerve, without any perceptible external change in the eye; -- called also gutta serena, the "drop serene" of Milton.

roportion; -- often followed by to. Analogous tendencies in arts and manners. De Quincey. Decay of public spirit, which may be considered analogous to natural death. J. H. Newman. nalogous pole (Pyroelect.), that pole of a crystal which becomes positively electrified when heated.

Having lost, or tending to lose, inflections by phonetic decay; as, anaptotic languages.

ifically: The remains of the human body when burnt, or when "returned to dust" by natural decay. Their martyred blood and ashes sow. Milton. The coffins were broken open. The ashes were scattered to the winds. Macaulay.

To lose, as blood; to emit or let drop, as sap. A decaying pine of stately size, bleeding amber. H. Miller.

A form of decay in fruit which is overripe.

A form of decay seen in fleshy, overripe fruit. Lindley.

Mildew; decay; anything nipping or blasting; -- applied as a general name to various injuries or diseases of plants, causing the whole or a part to wither, whether occasioned by insects, fungi, or atmospheric influences.

A quagmire filled with decayed moss and other vegetable matter; wet spongy ground where a heavy body is apt to sink; a marsh; a morass. Appalled with thoughts of bog, or caverned pit, Of treacherous earth, subsiding where they tread. R. Jago.

, fabrics, etc.) to a process of saturation in a solution of chloride of zinc, to prevent decay; -- a process invented by Sir William Burnett.

of burying small dead animals by digging away the earth beneath them. The larvæ feed upon decaying flesh, and are useful scavengers. -- To bury the hatchet, to lay aside the instruments of war, and make peace; -- a phrase used in allusion to the custom observed by the North American Indians, of burying a tomahawk when…

The abandoned and decaying remains of some bulky and once comely thing, as a ship; the skeleton, or the uncovered or unfinished frame, of a thing. A rotten carcass of a boat. Shak.

Affected with caries; decaying; as, a carious tooth.