| Library / English Dictionary |
DECAYED
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Damaged by decay; hence unsound and useless
Example:
a decayed foundation
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Similar:
unsound (not in good condition; damaged or decayed)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
Past simple / past participle of the verb decay
Context examples:
Many were the inquiries she was eager to make of Miss Tilney; but so active were her thoughts, that when these inquiries were answered, she was hardly more assured than before, of Northanger Abbey having been a richly endowed convent at the time of the Reformation, of its having fallen into the hands of an ancestor of the Tilneys on its dissolution, of a large portion of the ancient building still making a part of the present dwelling although the rest was decayed, or of its standing low in a valley, sheltered from the north and east by rising woods of oak.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
Nature decayed around me, and the sun became heatless; rain and snow poured around me; mighty rivers were frozen; the surface of the earth was hard and chill, and bare, and I found no shelter.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
