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decay

[dih-kay] / dɪˈkeɪ /




Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

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The long-term nature of the leverage will also spare traders from the intense volatility decay experienced from holding leveraged ETFs that see big price swings and that reset daily.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 10, 2026

Fulton Sheen likewise fiercely denounced communism and Nazism, as well as the cultural decay he believed left the West vulnerable to tyranny.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 5, 2026

The decay just hasn’t made itself known yet.

From Salon ● Oct. 2, 2026

His photographs capture not only the movie houses but their ornate facades and decay -- a record of a cultural landscape disappearing as cinemas are demolished, converted into multiplexes or left to crumble.

From Barron's ● Sep. 27, 2026

The ’dobe house had entered its second decay.

From "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck

Precise investigations of decays like this are one of the primary goals of the LHCb experiment, and have been since its inception in 1994.

From Science Daily ● May 26, 2026

Sphagnum moss can hold 20 times its weight in water and helps create peat bogs, where dead vegetation accumulates rather than decays, capturing carbon in the ground.

From BBC ● Feb. 8, 2026

It contains radium that decays into radon gas, which is radioactive and can cause cancer.

From Barron's ● Oct. 10, 2025

“But the U.S. Constitution is neither bone nor stone. It is an explosion of ideas. Parchment decays and ink fades, but ideas endure; they also change.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 15, 2025

In order to do harm, a radioactive isotope must be in or on the body when it decays.

From "Meltdown" by Deirdre Langeland

Beneath her boots is peat, built up over thousands of years and consisting of partially decayed plants and organic matter.

From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2026

Yet, despite this surge of security personnel, basic living conditions have only decayed.

From Slate ● Aug. 11, 2026

The silver permanently turns the decayed part of the tooth dark.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 29, 2026

“Remote and hybrid work used to be a privilege, but its benefits over in-person work have decayed across the board,” Chris Martin, senior economist at Glassdoor, told MarketWatch.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 27, 2026

Trees, forced by the damp heat, found too little soil for full growth, fell early and decayed: creepers cradled them, and new saplings searched a way up.

From "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding

Woodall returned at the cafe’s request, filming the stained, decaying ceiling and the water-catching buckets and coffee pots on the floor.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2026

Instead of studying photons or other relatively long-lived quantum systems, the researchers searched for entanglement between pairs of Z bosons, massive particles that exist for only a tiny fraction of a second before decaying.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 20, 2026

"The smell is like decaying wood being burned – that's the characteristic smell of peat. And that peat contains decomposed wood and organic material from many different sources."

From BBC ● Sep. 6, 2026

When the local economy began declining in the 1970s, the store closed its doors and sat abandoned and decaying.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 4, 2026

We stood among the decaying, rotting vegetation and faced our enemies.

From "City of the Plague God" by Sarwat Chadda




Vocabulary lists containing decay


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