| Library / English Dictionary |
ROTTEN
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Having decayed or disintegrated; usually implies foulness
Example:
dead and rotten in his grave
Classified under:
Similar:
stale (lacking freshness, palatability, or showing deterioration from age)
Derivation:
rottenness (the quality of rotting and becoming putrid)
rottenness (in a state of progressive putrefaction)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Very bad
Example:
it's a stinking world
Synonyms:
crappy; icky; lousy; rotten; shitty; stinking; stinky
Classified under:
Similar:
bad (having undesirable or negative qualities)
Domain usage:
colloquialism (a colloquial expression; characteristic of spoken or written communication that seeks to imitate informal speech)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Damaged by decay; hence unsound and useless
Example:
a decayed foundation
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
unsound (not in good condition; damaged or decayed)
Derivation:
rottenness (in a state of progressive putrefaction)
Context examples:
What of the thin and rotten ice he had felt under his feet all day, it seemed that he sensed disaster close at hand, out there ahead on the ice where his master was trying to drive him.
(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)
For instance, a crew of pirates are driven by a storm they know not whither; at length a boy discovers land from the top-mast; they go on shore to rob and plunder, they see a harmless people, are entertained with kindness; they give the country a new name; they take formal possession of it for their king; they set up a rotten plank, or a stone, for a memorial; they murder two or three dozen of the natives, bring away a couple more, by force, for a sample; return home, and get their pardon.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
I wish to be a better man than I have been, than I am; as Job's leviathan broke the spear, the dart, and the habergeon, hindrances which others count as iron and brass, I will esteem but straw and rotten wood.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
The rotten bark gave way under his feet, and with a despairing yelp he pitched down the rounded crescent, smashed through the leafage and stalks of a small bush, and in the heart of the bush, on the ground, fetched up in the midst of seven ptarmigan chicks.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
What rotten good is our education, yours and mine and Arthur's and Norman's?
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
He’s the boy’ll fix ’em. ’Tis him that’ll put the fear of God in their rotten black hearts.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
It has been touch and go for our lives, said Lord John, gravely, and I could not think of a more rotten sort of death than to be outed by such filthy vermin.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
It was not more than thirty feet that I had to go, but I went inch by inch, for the old rotten boards snapped like breaking twigs if a sudden weight was placed upon them.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
For a minute Jo stood still with a strange feeling in her heart, then she resolved to go on, but something held and turned her round, just in time to see Amy throw up her hands and go down, with a sudden crash of rotten ice, the splash of water, and a cry that made Jo's heart stand still with fear.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
“They told us up above that the bottom was dropping out of the trail and that the best thing for us to do was to lay over,” Hal said in response to Thornton’s warning to take no more chances on the rotten ice.
(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)
