Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A putrescent character or condition.
  • noun Putrid matter.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Putrescent character or condition; tendency to putridity or decay; a putrid state.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The state of being putrescent; putrescent matter.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The condition of being putrid; decay
  • noun Putrid matter

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun in a state of progressive putrefaction
  • noun the quality of rotting and becoming putrid

Etymologies

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Examples

  • As in the alcoholic, lactic, or butyric ferments, the process set up is shown to be dependent upon and concurrent with the vegetative processes of the demonstrated organisms characterizing these ferments; so it can be shown with equal clearness and certainty that the entire process of what is known as putrescence is equally and as absolutely dependent on the vital processes of a given and discoverable series of organisms.

    Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 Various

  • Such mysterious things, which we ought perhaps to call the putrescence of the human heart, lie at the base of the greatest revolutions, political, social or domestic; but in telling of them it is desirable to explain that their subtle significance cannot be given in a matter-of-fact narrative.

    The Celibates Honor�� de Balzac 1824

  • Is it bad that as soon as I read "putrescence" I started envisioning the Princess Bride....

    Purging the Evil Within Jen 2009

  • Spock closed his awareness to the input of his body—the darkness before his eyes, the damp chill against his face, the undercurrent of putrescence assailing his nostrils—and searched for whatever perceptions had reached his unconscious mind.

    Star Trek: Typhon Pact: Rough Beasts of Empire David R. George III 2011

  • Spock closed his awareness to the input of his body—the darkness before his eyes, the damp chill against his face, the undercurrent of putrescence assailing his nostrils—and searched for whatever perceptions had reached his unconscious mind.

    Star Trek: Typhon Pact: Rough Beasts of Empire David R. George III 2011

  • I look back with great fondness, espescially my 'shallow-grave' experience I had at the age of 9, where our group came across disturbed earth out near 'our' club-place in the suburbs of Houston accompanied by the smell of putrescence ...

    The Tobolowsky Files Ep. 22 - The Dangerous Animals Club | /Film 2010

  • Spock closed his awareness to the input of his body—the darkness before his eyes, the damp chill against his face, the undercurrent of putrescence assailing his nostrils—and searched for whatever perceptions had reached his unconscious mind.

    Star Trek: Typhon Pact: Rough Beasts of Empire David R. George III 2011

  • Spock closed his awareness to the input of his body—the darkness before his eyes, the damp chill against his face, the undercurrent of putrescence assailing his nostrils—and searched for whatever perceptions had reached his unconscious mind.

    Star Trek: Typhon Pact: Rough Beasts of Empire David R. George III 2011

  • Spock closed his awareness to the input of his body—the darkness before his eyes, the damp chill against his face, the undercurrent of putrescence assailing his nostrils—and searched for whatever perceptions had reached his unconscious mind.

    Star Trek: Typhon Pact: Rough Beasts of Empire David R. George III 2011

  • I think you maybe meant to say "Tilda Swinton was the the only gleam of light in the ambivalent putrescence of bad acting, choppy 'plot,' and butchered source material of 'Constantine.'"

    After the Relapse trillian_stars 2010

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