Definition of decay

"decay" in the noun sense

1. decay

the process of gradually becoming inferior

2. decay, decline

a gradual decrease as of stored charge or current

3. decay, decomposition

the organic phenomenon of rotting

4. decay

an inferior state resulting from the process of decaying

"the corpse was in an advanced state of decay"

"the house had fallen into a serious state of decay and disrepair"

5. decay, radioactive decay, disintegration

the spontaneous disintegration of a radioactive substance along with the emission of ionizing radiation

"decay" in the verb sense

1. disintegrate, decay, decompose

lose a stored charge, magnetic flux, or current

"the particles disintegrated during the nuclear fission process"

2. decay, crumble, dilapidate

fall into decay or ruin

"The unoccupied house started to decay"

3. decay

undergo decay or decomposition

"The body started to decay and needed to be cremated"

Source: WordNet® (An amazing lexical database of English)

Princeton University "About WordNet®."
WordNet®. Princeton University. 2010.


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Quotations for decay

This muddy vesture of decay. [ William Shakespeare ]

Then with no fiery throbbing pain.
No cold gradations of decay.
Death broke at once the vital chain.
And freed his soul the nearest way. [ Samuel Johnson ]

The ruins of himself! now worn away
With age, yet still majestic in decay. [ Homer ]

All, that in this world is great or gay.
Doth, as a vapor, vanish and decay. [ Spenser ]

A fiery soul, which, working out its way.
Fretted the pygmy-body to decay,
And o'er-inform'd the tenement of clay. [ John Dryden ]

Nations and empires flourish and decay,
By turns command, and in their turn obey. [ Dryden, after Ovid ]

And so all growth that is not towards God
Is growing to decay. [ George MacDonald ]

Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay,
while resignation gently slopes the way. [ Goldsmith ]

He bore a simple wild-flower wreath:
Narcissus, and the sweet brier rose;
Vervain, and flexile thyme, that breathe
Rich fragrance; modest heath, that glows
With purple bells; the amaranth bright.
That no decay, nor fading knows.
Like true love's holiest, rarest light;
And every purest flower, that blows,
In that sweet time, which Love most blesses,
When spring on summer's confines presses. [ Thomas Love Peacock ]

The rose is fragrant, but it fades in time:
The violet sweet, but quickly past the prime:
White lilies hang their heads, and soon decay,
And white snow in minutes melts away. [ Dryden ]

Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining.
Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day,
Tremulous leaves, with soft and silver lining,
Buds that open only to decay. [ Longfellow ]

But on he moves to meet his latter end,
Angels around befriending virtue's friend;
Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay,
While resignation gently slopes the way;
And all his prospects bright'ning to the last,
His heaven commences, ere the world be past! [ Goldsmith ]

Flowers are Love's truest language; they betray,
Like the divining rods of Magi old,
Where precious wealth lies buried, not of gold,
But love - strong love, that never can decay! [ Park Benjamin ]

There is nothing can equal the tender hours
When life is first in bloom,
When the heart like a bee, in a wild of flowers,
Finds everywhere perfume;
When the present is all and it questions not
If those flowers shall pass away,
But pleased with its own delightful lot,
Dreams never of decay. [ Bohn ]

Like leaves on trees the race of man is found,
Now green in youth, now withering on the ground;
Another race, the following spring supplies;
They fall successive, and successive rise:
So generations in their course decay;
So flourish these, when those have passed away. [ Homer, Pope's Iliad ]

The only jewel which will not decay is knowledge. [ John Alfred Langford ]

Trust not the treason of those smiling looks.
Until ye have their guileful trains well tried;
For they are like but unto golden hooks.
That from the foolish fish their baits do hide:
So she with flattering smiles weak hearts doth guide
Unto her love, and tempt to their decay;
Whom, being caught, she kills with cruel pride,
And feeds at pleasure on the wretched prey. [ Spenser ]

They are the heritage that glorious minds
Bequeath unto the world! — a glittering store
Of gems, more precious far than those he finds
Who searches miser's hidden treasures over.
They are the light, the guiding star of youth.
Leading his spirit to the realms of thought,
Pointing the way to Virtue, Knowledge, Truth,
And teaching lessons, with deep wisdom fraught.
They cast strange beauty round our earthly dreams,
And mystic brightness over our daily lot;
They lead the soul afar to fairy scenes,
Where the world's under visions enter not;
They're deathless and immortal — ages pass away,
Yet still they speak, instruct, inspire, amidst decay! [ Emeline S. Smith ]

All growth that is not towards God is growing to decay. [ George MacDonald ]

Accident ever varies; substance can never suffer change or decay. [ Wm. Blake ]

When love begins to sicken and decay it useth an enforced ceremony. [ Shakespeare ]

Oh! it is deplorable to behold neglect aiding in the triumph of decay. [ J. Linen ]

Before decay's effacing fingers have swept the lines where beauty lingers. [ Byron ]

Triumph not, O Time! strong towers decay, but a great name shall never pass away. [ Park Benjamin ]

Men, like peaches and pears, grow sweet a little while before they begin to decay. [ Holmes ]

Year chases year, decay pursues decay; still drops some joy from withering life away. [ Dr. Johnson ]

The deterioration of a government begins almost always by the decay of its principles. [ Montesquieu ]

Hesitation of any kind is a sign of mental decay in the young, of physical weakness in the old. [ Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest ]

Remembrance of the dead soon fades. Alas! in their tombs, they decay more slowly than in our hearts. [ Victor Hugo ]

Decay and disease are often beautiful, like the pearly tear of the shellfish and the hectic glow of consumption. [ Thoreau ]

Age is not all decay; it is the ripening, the swelling of the fresh life within that withers and bursts the husk. [ George Macdonald ]

Truth is the only real lasting foundation for friendship, in all but truth there is a principle of decay and dissimulation. [ Miss Helen Edgeworth ]

Death is not an end, but a transition crisis. All the forms of decay are but masks of regeneration - the secret alembics of vitality. [ Chapin ]

Too great carelessness, equally with excess in dress, multiplies the wrinkles of old age, and makes its decay still more conspicuous. [ Bruyere ]

Setting is preliminary to brighter rising; decay is a process of advancement; death is the condition of higher and more fruitful life. [ Chapin ]

There is no greater sign of a general decay of virtue in a nation than a want of zeal in its inhabitants for the good of their country. [ Addison ]

Female beauties are as fickle in their faces as in their minds; though casualties should spare them, age brings in a necessity of decay. [ Boyle ]

The fate of a man of feeling is, like that of a tuft of flowers, twofold; he may either mount upon the head of all, or go to decay in the wilderness. [ Hitopadesa ]

The blessings of health and fortune, as they have a beginning, so they must also have an end. Everything rises but to fall, and increases but to decay. [ Sallust ]

It is a revered thing to see an ancient castle not in decay; how much more to behold an ancient family which have stood against the waves and weathers of time! [ Bacon ]

The avarice of the miser may be termed the grand sepulchre of all his other passions, as they successively decay. But unlike other tombs, it is enlarged by repletion and strengthened by age. [ Colton ]

Can we wonder that men perish and are forgotten, when their noblest and most enduring works decay? Death comes even to monumental structures, and oblivion rests on the most illustrious names. [ Ausonius ]

Flowers are esteemed by us, not so much on account of their extrinsic beauty - their glowing hues and genial fragrance - as because they have long been regarded as emblems of mortality - because they are associated in our minds with the ideas of mutation and decay. [ Bovee ]

Parents fear the destruction of natural affection in their children. What is this natural principle so liable to decay? Habit is a second nature, which destroys the first. Why is not custom nature? I suspect that this nature itself is but a first custom, as custom is a second nature. [ Pascal ]

The failure of his mind in old age is often less the result of natural decay than of disuse. Ambition has ceased to operate; contentment brings indolence: indolence, decay of mental power, ennui, and sometimes death. Men have been known to die, literally speaking, of disease induced by intellectual vacancy. [ Sir Benjamin Brodie ]

How absolute and omnipotent is the silence of night! And yet the stillness seems almost audible! From all the measureless depths of air around us comes a half-sound, a half-whisper, as if we could hear the crumbling and falling away of earth and all created things, in the great miracle of nature, decay and reproduction, ever beginning, never ending, - the gradual lapse and running of the sand in the great hour-glass of Time. [ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ]

decay in Scrabble®

The word decay is playable in Scrabble®, no blanks required.

Scrabble® Letter Score: 11

Highest Scoring Scrabble® Play In The Letters decay:

DECAY
(45)
 

All Scrabble® Plays For The Word decay

DECAY
(45)
DECAY
(39)
DECAY
(38)
DECAY
(36)
DECAY
(36)
DECAY
(33)
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DECAY
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DECAY
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DECAY
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DECAY
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DECAY
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DECAY
(13)
DECAY
(12)
DECAY
(12)
DECAY
(11)

The 200 Highest Scoring Scrabble® Plays For Words Using The Letters In decay

DECAY
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DECAY
(39)
DECAY
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DECAY
(36)
DECAY
(36)
DECAY
(33)
DECAY
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DECAY
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DECAY
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DECAY
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DECAY
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ACED
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DECAY
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DECAY
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CAY
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ACED
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CAY
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DECAY
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DECAY
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DEY
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DAY
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ACED
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DYE
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ACED
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DYE
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ACED
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DEY
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AYE
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AYE
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AYE
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CAD
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CAD
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DECAY
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YEA
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CAD
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ACED
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YEA
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YEA
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DECAY
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CAY
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ACE
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DEY
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ACED
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DEY
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CAD
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YEA
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ACED
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DECAY
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YEA
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AYE
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AYE
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CAD
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CAD
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YEA
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CAY
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AYE
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YEA
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CAY
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ACE
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DYE
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ACED
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DEY
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DAY
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DEY
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DECAY
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DAY
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YA
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ACE
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ACE
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YE
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AY
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AYE
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DYE
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YEA
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AY
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ACE
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DEY
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CAY
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CAY
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decay in Words With Friends™

The word decay is playable in Words With Friends™, no blanks required.

Words With Friends™ Letter Score: 11

Highest Scoring Words With Friends™ Play In The Letters decay:

DECAY
(51)
 

All Words With Friends™ Plays For The Word decay

DECAY
(51)
DECAY
(45)
DECAY
(44)
DECAY
(39)
DECAY
(39)
DECAY
(34)
DECAY
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DECAY
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DECAY
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DECAY
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DECAY
(16)
DECAY
(15)
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DECAY
(15)
DECAY
(14)
DECAY
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DECAY
(13)
DECAY
(13)
DECAY
(13)
DECAY
(13)
DECAY
(12)
DECAY
(12)
DECAY
(11)

The 200 Highest Scoring Words With Friends™ Plays Using The Letters In decay

DECAY
(51)
DECAY
(45)
DECAY
(44)
DECAY
(39)
DECAY
(39)
ACED
(36)
DECAY
(34)
DECAY
(33)
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(33)
DECAY
(33)
ACED
(30)
DECAY
(30)
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(28)
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ACED
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CAY
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ACED
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ACED
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ACED
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DECAY
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CAY
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DECAY
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DECAY
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(22)
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(22)
CAD
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CAD
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CAD
(21)
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ACED
(20)
ACED
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ACE
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DYE
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ACE
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ACE
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DAY
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DAY
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YEA
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Words within the letters of decay

2 letter words in decay (4 words)

3 letter words in decay (8 words)

4 letter words in decay (1 word)

5 letter words in decay (1 word)

decay + 1 blank (2 words)

Words containing the sequence decay

Words that end with decay (2 words)

Word Growth involving decay

Shorter words in decay

ay cay

Longer words containing decay

decayable undecayable undecayableness

decayed decayedness undecayedness

decayed nondecayed

decayed semidecayed

decayed undecayed undecayedness

decayer decayers

decaying nondecaying

decaying undecaying

decayless

decays

semidecay semidecayed