Definitions

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

  • intransitive verb To grow old; age.
  • intransitive verb To stop dividing, as certain cells.

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

  • verb To grow older; reach maturity.

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

  • verb grow old or older

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Back-formation from senescent.]

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Examples

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  • "Mycologists, scientists who study fungi, have long assumed that many of these organisms don’t age. The clear exception is yeast, a single-cell fungus that does senesce and that researchers use as a model to study aging. But most multicellular fungi, the assumption goes, don’t senesce."

    June 7, 2022