Find the word definition

Crossword clues for rotten

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
rotten
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a terrible/poor/rotten liar (=who does not tell believable lies)
▪ You're a rotten liar, Julia. What really happened?
bad/rotten
▪ She felt ashamed of her bad teeth and rarely smiled.
rotten to the core
▪ That woman is rotten to the core!
rotten (=bad, so that the skin goes brown)
▪ There were a few rotten apples lying on the ground.
spoiled rotten (=very spoiled)
▪ Their children were spoiled rotten .
spoil...rotten (=spoil him very much)
▪ His mother and sisters spoil him rotten.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
apple
▪ From that bad start, many little rotten apples grew.
▪ If you have one rotten apple in the bunch, it impacts the others.
▪ We reject green and rotten apples; only the ripe apple is good.
▪ In this case, Acheson said one rotten apple would infect the whole barrel.
▪ A few windows were flung open, and two little lads pelted Broomhead with rotten apples before they were chased off.
▪ And they are doing it in an era that has seen dot-coms dropping from the Internet tree like rotten apples.
egg
▪ When Vice-President Nixon toured the area in 1958 he was pelted with rotten eggs and jostled by angry demonstrators.
▪ All of the vent fluids are rich in this compound, which has the distinct odor of rotten eggs.
▪ The smell is distinctive, too: chemicals and rotten eggs, the hydrogen sulphides produced by processing coal.
▪ He smelt raw earth and then something else - rotten eggs.
▪ There may also be green diarrhoea and a smell of rotten eggs.
▪ Pelted with rotten eggs and faced with armed threats, the protesters eventually turned back.
luck
▪ It's rotten, rotten luck.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a dirty/rotten/mean trick
▪ Bomb threats and other dirty tricks kept many voters at home.
a poor/rotten etc excuse for sth
▪ But Tories have continued to attack, saying the scheme is a poor excuse for real pedestrianisation.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
rotten eggs
▪ a pile of rotten apples
▪ I've had a rotten day.
▪ I wouldn't climb that tree if I were you - some of the branches look rotten.
▪ The floor in the bathroom is all rotten.
▪ There was a disgusting smell in the house - a bit like rotten eggs.
▪ There were some cheap oranges in the market but most of them were rotten.
▪ Tom complained loudly about the rotten service.
▪ We want to get rid of the whole rotten tax system.
▪ You're rotten at lying.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Gao Yang was frightened by his rotten, misshapen teeth and weepy, festering eyes.
▪ He's had a rotten life and he's still having it with that woman.
▪ He scrabbled in the snow for the rotten corpse.
▪ In this case, Acheson said one rotten apple would infect the whole barrel.
▪ Inspect stored fruit every week and throw out any that has started to go rotten.
▪ She flung the receiver away from her as though it were rotten, and backed toward the door.
▪ The group publicizes the problems of families denied information from Chechnya as well as the rotten conditions of troops there.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Rotten

Rotten \Rot"ten\, a. [Icel. rotinn; akin to Sw. rutten, Dan. radden. See Rot.] Having rotted; putrid; decayed; as, a rotten apple; rotten meat. Hence:

  1. Offensive to the smell; fetid; disgusting.

    You common cry of curs! whose breath I hate As reek of the rotten fens.
    --Shak.

  2. Not firm or trusty; unsound; defective; treacherous; unsafe; as, a rotten plank, bone, stone. ``The deepness of the rotten way.''
    --Knolles.

    Rotten borough. See under Borough.

    Rotten stone (Min.), a soft stone, called also Tripoli (from the country from which it was formerly brought), used in all sorts of finer grinding and polishing in the arts, and for cleaning metallic substances. The name is also given to other friable siliceous stones applied to like uses.

    Syn: Putrefied; decayed; carious; defective; unsound; corrupt; deceitful; treacherous. [1913 Webster] -- Rot"ten*ly, adv. -- Rot"ten*ness, n.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
rotten

c.1300, from a Scandinavian source akin to Old Norse rotinn "decayed," past participle of verb related to rotna "to decay," from Proto-Germanic stem *rut- (see rot (v.)). Sense of "corrupt" is from late 14c.; weakened sense of "bad" first recorded 1881. Rotten apple is from a saying traced back to at least 1528: "For one rotten apple lytell and lytell putrifieth an whole heape." The Rotten Row in London and elsewhere probably is from a different word, but of uncertain origin.

Wiktionary
rotten

a. 1 Of perishable items, overridden with bacteria and other infectious agents. 2 In a state of decay. 3 cruel, mean or immoral. 4 bad or terrible. adv. To an extreme degree.

WordNet
rotten
  1. adj. very bad; "a lousy play"; "it's a stinking world" [syn: icky, crappy, lousy, shitty, stinking, stinky]

  2. having rotted or disintegrated; usually implies foulness; "dead and rotten in his grave" [ant: unrotten]

  3. damaged by decay; hence unsound and useless; "rotten floor boards"; "rotted beams"; "a decayed foundation" [syn: decayed, rotted]

Wikipedia
Rotten

Things that are related to the word rotten:

  • Aus-Rotten - political hardcore punk group
  • Biodegradation- the process of rotting
  • Calabash Nebula - known as the Rotten Egg Nebula
  • Rotten borough - a borough of a ridiculously small electorate
  • Dirty Rotten Imbeciles - thrash/hardcore punk band
  • Dirty Rotten Scoundrels - 1988 comedy film directed by Frank Oz
  • Rotten Apples, a greatest hits compilation by the Smashing Pumpkins
  • Rottentomatoes.com - website devoted to reviews and news of movies and video games
  • Rottenrow - street in Glasgow
  • The Rottentrolls - 1990s British children's television programme
  • The Rotters' Club - novel by Jonathan Coe
  • Rotten.com - a United States-hosted shock site
People
  • Axl Rotten, ring name of American professional wrestler Brian Knighton (1971–2016)
  • Ian Rotten, ring name of American professional wrestler John Benson Williams (born 1970)
  • Johnny Rotten, former stage name of John Lydon (born 1956), British musician most famous as lead singer of the Sex Pistols and Public Image Ltd
Places
  • Rotten, a local name of the river Rhone

Usage examples of "rotten".

Then the courage came into his body, and with a great might he abraid upon his feet, and smote the black and yellow knight upon the helm by an overstroke so fierce that the sword sheared away the third part of his head, as it had been a rotten cheese.

If a runner wanted to hide and develop a safe identity, pretending to be a Yale alumnus was a rotten idea, and wearing a Yale ring was a worse idea.

Jimmy Monroe told me to take a flutter in some rotten thing called Amalgamated Dyes.

My nails had already been lost, my work aboard the argosy having proved too great a task for their loose, rotten condition.

Having hinted that the little fire devils of the forest, which I fancy every savage has seen, at one time or another, peering at him from rotten tree trunks, logs, or stumps, might be attracted by the proximity of the great Fire Demon, I strolled off a short distance, as though to search for them.

The thing is, you know that as soon as you leave town they are going to bad-mouth you rotten.

For Berel Jastrow these rotten remains possess all the sad sacred sweetness of the dead: poor cold silent mechanisms, once warm happy creatures sparkling with life, now dumb and motionless without the spark of God in them, but destined one day in His good time to rise again.

Mivarsh, bethinking him that if the mantichores of the mountains should devour him along with those two lords, that were yet a kindlier fate than all alone to abide those things he wist of on the Moruna, put on the rope, and after commending himself to the protection of his gods followed Lord Brandoch Daha down the rotten slopes of rock and frozen earth at the head of a gully leading down the cliff.

No one would miss these bunglers, who are stinking up Tallahassee with their rotten, self-serving politics.

The rotten twister lets me and Byrt fend for ourselves with the goblins.

So up anchor and take your rotten carack back to whatever port of dreams you hale from.

Dame will you have me tell the truth, this tub is rotten and crackt as me seemeth on every side.

I did not purchase any gloves, and I resolved to avoid her and to abandon her to the insipid and dull gallantry of Sanzonio, who sported gloves, but whose teeth were rotten, whose breath was putrid, who wore a wig, and whose face seemed to be covered with shrivelled yellow parchment.

With enough of these, we can crack open drogue warglobes like rotten eggs.

Kirsty was to be my partner in the first eightsome, and she jilted me, by gad--looked through me when I went to claim her--and danced all night with that rotten lordling.