From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishrotrot1 /rɒt $ rɑːt/ ●●○ verb (rotted, rotting) 1 [intransitive, transitive]HBDECAY 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→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
rot• Everywhere, it was like an over-flowing septic tank or something rotting.• If water gets inside the woodwork, it causes it to rot.• Bowman continues: During the monsoon, everything would rot.• Millions of these books are shredded yearly or allowed to rot and gather dust in purgatorial existence.• His body was left to rot as a warning to others who might be tempted to stray from those paths of righteousness.• Anything written with biro on cheap paper will quickly rot away creating yet more work for the conservators.• The roof had fallen in and the floor had completely rotted away.• Or, you can cover it with black plastic so that it rots down.• The apartment is dirtier still, the air filled with the stench of rotting garbage and diapers hours overdue to be changed.• If you leave any water in the bottom of the boat, it'll slowly rot it away.• Many of the tomatoes had rotted on their stems.• The gorgeous canopies have rotted, the bamboo supports have snapped.• Bedtime drinks aimed at helping children to sleep may be rotting their teeth.• In some countries food is left to rot, while in others people are dying from hunger.• Moisture can rot your house's foundation.rot away• Outside the stately music hall, two-story white pillars are quietly rotting away.• She would rage and scorn, and hold me close for a minute, and promise to leave him to rot away.• Anything written with biro on cheap paper will quickly rot away creating yet more work for the conservators.• All this would have rotted away had the rescue operation not swung into action.• It would be absurd to rot away in a building that had no front door.• Lack of self-knowledge is like rotting away in the maze with the blindfold on.• All the same ... I could hardly imagine the relics rotting away to nothing ... all in the course of a single night.• A century later the forest would be regrown, the downed trees rotted away to nothing.rotrot2 noun 1 [uncountable]HBDECAY the natural process of decaying, or the part of something that has decayed the smell of rot wood that is soft with rot → dry rot2 [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-fashionedUNTRUE nonsense You do talk rot!Examples from the Corpus
rot• Damp must not be allowed to enter as rot can quickly result.• They went through all that boring rot about the war again.• They had also done something terrible to the boiler, and discovered dry rot in the airing-cupboard.• Economic specialists hope to guide the country out of its economic rot.• To me it held overtones of rot and decomposition, perhaps imaginary because of my worries about the condition of the raft.• Joe recommended that everyone thoroughly dried and massaged their feet before climbing into a sleeping bag or they risked skin rot.• In all the circumstances some rot of some kind was almost inevitable in a good proportion of gliders.• As far as Greenpeace is concerned - unless the rot is stopped now rivers like the Severn are doomed to slow death by poisoning.• Above all the drift to a self-seeking, self-satisfying, self-fulfilling approach to relationships is where the rot is really setting in.• The wood was soft with rot.the rot set in• We wormed and wriggled his way through to touch down and the rot set in.Origin rot1 Old English rotian 