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Having rotted; putrid; decayed; as, a rotten apple; rotten meat. Hence:

Having lost the power of development, and become rotten, as eggs; putrid. Hence: Unfruitful or confused, as brains; muddled. Dryden.

s evidence of facts; as, the archives of a country or family. [Rarely used in sing.] Some rotten archive, rummaged out of some seldom explored press. Lamb.

A spot or stain, as of ink on paper; a blur. "Inky blots and rotten parchment bonds." Shak.

sending a member to Parliament, whose nomination is in the hands of a single person. -- Rotten borough, a name given to any borough which, at the time of the passage of the Reform Bill of 1832, contained but few voters, yet retained the privilege of sending a member to Parliament.

omely thing, as a ship; the skeleton, or the uncovered or unfinished frame, of a thing. A rotten carcass of a boat. Shak.

. shall cleave unto thee. Deut. xxviii. 60. Sophistry cleaves close to and protects Sin's rotten trunk, concealing its defects. Cowper.

The rotten body of a tree. [Prov. Eng.] Wright.

ecies of excellence or perfection; tendency toward dissolution or extinction; corruption; rottenness; decline; deterioration; as, the decay of the body; the decay of virtue; the decay of the Roman empire; a castle in decay. Perhaps my God, though he be far before, May turn, and take me by the hand, and more -May streng…

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.

Half-rotten; as, doted wood. [Local, U. S.]

Half-rotten; as, doty timber. [Local, U. S.]

Rotten from being too ripe; overripe. [Obs.] Blount.

hich candidates for Parliament formerly stood in addressing the electors. [Eng.] When the rotten hustings shake In another month to his brazen lies. Tennyson.

Half-rotten straw, or any like substance strewn on the ground, as over the roots of plants, to protect from heat, drought, etc., and to preserve moisture.

e are the greater poll, and in true fear They gave us our demands. Shak. The muster file, rotten and sound, upon my life, amounts not to fifteen thousand poll. Shak.

Rotten; fetid; stinking; base; worthless. Jer. Taylor. "Thy putid muse." Dr. H. More.

refaction, or partaking of the putrefactive process; having an offensive smell; stinking; rotten.

Becoming putrid or rotten. Externally powerful, although putrescent at the core. Motley.

Tending to decomposition or decay; decomposed; rotten; -- said of animal or vegetable matter; as, putrid flesh. See Putrefaction.