Word.ws English Dictionary

rot

UK/ɹɒt//ɹɑt/

rot verb: to suffer decomposition due to biological action, especially by fungi or bacteria.

Verb

rot (third-person singular simple present rots, present participle rotting, simple past and past participle rotted)

  1. (intransitive) To suffer decomposition due to biological action, especially by fungi or bacteria.
    • The apple left in the cupboard all that time had started to rot.
    • Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot, / To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot.1733, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Man. […], (please specify |epistle=I to IV), London: […] J[ohn] Wilford, […], →OCLC
  2. (intransitive) To decline in function or utility.
    • Your brain will rot if you spend so much time on the computer, Tony!
  3. (ambitransitive) To (cause to) deteriorate in any way, as in morals; to corrupt.
  4. (transitive) To make putrid; to cause to be wholly or partially decomposed by natural processes.
    • to rot vegetable fiber
  5. (figuratively, intransitive) To spend a long period of time (in an unpleasant place or state).
    • to rot in prison
    • to rot in Hell
  6. (transitive) To expose, as flax, to a process of maceration, etc., for the purpose of separating the fiber; to ret.
  7. (dated, slang) To talk nonsense.
    • “Did they hang you well?” said Porson.
      “Don’t rot,” said Mr Watkins; “I don’t like it.”1894, H. G. Wells, The Hammerpond Park Burglary
    • Adrian thought it worth while to try out his new slang. ‘I say, you fellows, here's a rum go. Old Biffo was jolly odd this morning. He gave me a lot of pi-jaw about slacking and then invited me to tea. No rotting! He did really.’1991, Stephen Fry, chapter III, in The Liar, London: William Heinemann, →ISBN, page 26
  8. (imperative, slang, transitive) Damn; blast.
    • "Oh rot yer!" exclaimed Fank, with a sudden flare of passion that at least carried with it the dignity of a genuine emotion; "I've had just abart enough of you and your blinkin' game, Toady Joolby. Here, I'd sooner smash the bloody thing, straight, than be such a ruddy mug as to swallow any of your...1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London

Noun (1)

rot (countable and uncountable, plural rots)

  1. The process of becoming rotten; putrefaction.
  2. Decaying matter.
    • When a turkey vulture detects the scent of rot, it circles down, tracing the plume of chemicals to its source.2016, Nathanael Johnson, Unseen City, →ISBN, page 115
  3. (in-compounds) Any of several diseases in which breakdown of tissue occurs.
    • His cattle must of rot and murrain die.1658–1663, John Milton, Paradise Lost
  4. (uncountable) Verbal nonsense.
    • You're talking rot! I don't believe a word.

Noun (2) capitalized: ROT

ROT (uncountable)

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of record of transmission.

Proper noun capitalized: ROT

ROT

  1. (abbreviation) Abbreviation of refugee Olympics team (country code for the team).
    Synonyms:
    ROA

rot meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali and Telugu

rot in Hindi

(intransitive) to suffer decomposition
सड़ना saṛnā

rot in Tamil

(intransitive) to suffer decomposition
அழுகு aḻuku

rot in Bengali

পচতে থাকা, পচতে

rot in Telugu

కుళ్ళిపోవడానికి
More languagesFewer languages
rot in Malayalam
ചീയുക cīyuka, ചീയിക്കുക cīyikkuka, ചീയൽ cīyal
rot in Kannada
ಕೊಳೆಯಲು
rot in Gujarati
સડી જવું
rot in Assamese
গেলা gela
rot in Arabic
أَفْسَدَ ʔafsada, فَسَدَ fasada
rot in Persian
پوسیدن pusidan, گندیدن gandidan
rot in Thai
ผุ pù
rot in Vietnamese
rữa, rã

Examples of rot in a sentence

  • If I hadn't rotted in bed all day I would've come...
  • Four of the sufferers were left to rot in irons.1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to...
  • "Oh rot yer!" exclaimed Fank, with a sudden flare of passion that at least carried with it the dignity of a genuine emotion; "I've had just abart enough of you and your blinkin' game, Toady Joolby.1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London:

All 40 example sentences with rot

Synonyms of rot

Forms of rot

Verb
third-person singular presentrots
present participlerotting
past participlerotted
pastrotted
Noun
pluralrots

Past tense of rot: rotted

Plural of rot: rots

Origin of rot

Inherited from Middle English roten, rotten, from Old English rotian (“to rot, become corrupted, ulcerate, putrefy”), from Proto-West Germanic *rotēn, from Proto-Germanic *rutāną (“to rot”).

Words formed from rot

Phrases with rot

9 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with rot

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about rot

What does rot mean?
Rot means to suffer decomposition due to biological action, especially by fungi or bacteria.
What is rot in Hindi?
Rot in Hindi is सड़ना (saṛnā). See Rot meaning in Hindi.
How do you use rot in a sentence?
If I hadn't rotted in bed all day I would've come...
What part of speech is rot?
Rot can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce rot?
Rot is pronounced /ɹɒt/ (UK).
What is the past tense of rot?
The past tense of rot is rotted.

Words near rot in the dictionary

  1. rosé sauce
  2. rosé sauces
  3. rosé wine
  4. rosé wines
  5. rosés
  6. rot
  7. rot away
  8. rot gut
  9. rot in hell
  10. rot me
  11. rot off

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rot (page history and authors); ROT (page history and authors); rot (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); rot (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); rot (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); rot (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-rot.ogg.

Cite this entry: “rot.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rot. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.