Word.ws English Dictionary

rotten apple

rotten apple noun: a bad person, especially one who has a corrupting influence on others.

Noun

rotten apple (plural rotten apples)

  1. (idiomatic) A bad person, especially one who has a corrupting influence on others.
    • Near-synonym: bad egg

Synonyms of rotten apple

Forms of rotten apple

pluralrotten apples

Words formed from rotten apple

Questions about rotten apple

What does rotten apple mean?
Rotten apple means a bad person, especially one who has a corrupting influence on others.
What part of speech is rotten apple?
Rotten apple is a noun.
What is the plural of rotten apple?
The plural of rotten apple is rotten apples.

Words near rotten apple in the dictionary

  1. rotted in hell
  2. rotted off
  3. rotted through
  4. rottedness
  5. rotten
  6. rotten apple
  7. rotten apples
  8. rotten borough
  9. rotten boroughs
  10. rotten egg
  11. rotten egg gas

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rotten apple (page history and authors). 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-rotten apple.ogg.

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