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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A process, condition, or period of deterioration or decline, as in morals or art; decay.
  2. n. A literary movement especially of late 19th-century France and England characterized by refined aestheticism, artifice, and the quest for new sensations.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A falling off or away; the act or process of falling into an inferior condition or state; the process or state of decay; deterioration.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A state of moral or artistic decline or deterioration; decay

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. A falling away; decay; deterioration; declension. “The old castle, where the family lived in their decadence.”

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. the state of being degenerate in mental or moral qualities

Etymologies

  1. French décadence, from Old French decadence, from Medieval Latin dēcadentia, a decaying, declining, from Vulgar Latin *dēcadere, to decay; see decay.

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‘decadence’ has been looked up 1889 times, loved by 7 people, added to 42 lists, and has a Scrabble score of 15.