Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use rotten in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective, adverb

Rotten means of perishable items, overridden with bacteria and other infectious agents. Example: “If you leave a bin unattended for a few weeks, the rubbish inside will turn rotten.”

Examples of rotten by meaning

adjectiveOf perishable items, overridden with bacteria and other infectious agents.

  • If you leave a bin unattended for a few weeks, the rubbish inside will turn rotten.

adjectiveIn a state of decay.

  • The floors were damaged and the walls were rotten.
  • His mouth stank and his teeth were rotten.

adjectiveCruel, mean or immoral.

  • That man is a rotten father.
  • This rotten policy will create more injustice in this country.

adjectiveBad or terrible.

  • Why is the weather always rotten in this city?
  • It was a rotten idea to take the boat out today.
  • She has the flu and feels rotten.

adverbTo an extreme degree.

  • That kid is spoilt rotten.
  • The girls fancy him something rotten.
  • "It's old man Challenger's show and we are here by his good will, so it would be rotten bad form if we didn't follow his instructions to the letter."1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC

More sentences with rotten

  • I took a bite out of the apple and immediately realized it was rotten.From the entry take a bite out of
  • Rotten leaves and branches have stopped the gutter.From the entry stop
  • Wooden planks of the old bridge's floor were nearly rotten.From the entry floor
  • There was one rotten apple in an otherwise perfect batch.From the entry otherwise
  • Such a witherward and rotten friend she was.From the entry witherward
  • Last one there is a rotten egg!From the entry rotten egg
  • I wish I could unsmell that rotten meat.From the entry unsmell
  • Most of these apples are rotten.From the entry of
  • If the authorities knew about the problems and chose not to prevent them, then clearly something is rotten in the state of Denmark.From the entry something is rotten in the state of Denmark
  • This apple is rotten right through.From the entry rot through
  • Or because they themselves experience gender dysphoria but have gone down the rotten egg path.2021 August 14, Violent_Violette, “Is gender dysphoria an exclusively trans experience?”, in Reddit, asktransgender, archived from the…. From the entry rotten egg
  • Larval proctotrupids are mostly parasitoids of litter or rotten wood-inhabiting larvae.2015, Vladimir V. Gouli, Concise Illustrated Dictionary of Biocontrol Terms, page 116. From the entry proctotrupid
  • She spoiled him rotten and introduced him to a life that wasn't really good for him.2015, Vernal Lind, Beyond Tomorrow, →ISBN. From the entry spoil someone rotten
  • This mission is rotten with absurdities that stick in her throat, but they have to start somewhere.2015, Richard Beard, Acts of the Assassins, page 63. From the entry stick in someone's throat
  • If you wish to leave your affairs in rotten mishmashy cluttersome disarray . . .2014, Donald Barthelme, The Dead Father. From the entry cluttersome
  • It had become unhinged—institutionally corrupt, rotten, like a fish, from the head.2014, Steve Schifferes, Richard Roberts, The Media and Financial Crises. From the entry hindsightism
  • The first sign of it is usually a horrible stink like rotten meat.2006 October 21, Peter Marren, “Day of the fungi”, in The Daily Telegraph, page 15. From the entry devil's fingers
  • I said you wasn't going to take my money you rotten little basterd."2005, Bonnie Ramey Standridge, Death Surrounds Her, page 142. From the entry basterd
  • "Thee's a right rotten skinflint, Barnaby," Victoria hissed at her husband.1993, James Clavell, James Clavell’s Gai-Jin: A Novel of Japan, New York, N.Y.: Delacorte Press, →ISBN, pages 265–266. From the entry titfer
  • “He’s spoiled rotten.” Fishing a lump of sugar out, she fed it to him.1992, Tamora Pierce, Wild Magic, New York, N.Y.: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, →ISBN, page 57. From the entry breech
  • Crosse three of his tomatoes were rotten last week, not just bad, rotten.1986, John le Carré, A Perfect Spy. From the entry subvention
  • They haven't run a mile, and they are rotten with rust.1953 February 9, Harold Lavine, “Chiang's Troops: They Are Rarin' to Fight Back”, in Newsweek, volume XLI, number 6, page 33. From the entry Pingtung
  • The stick was rotten and broke, without having caused Cora to budge an inch.1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 132. From the entry obduracy
  • Although its closeness was mitigated with lavender-water, the atmosphere smelt faintly of rotten apples.1933, Ethel Lina White, chapter 5, in Some Must Watch. From the entry lavender water
  • "Nothin' like mystery to keep that rotten little camp up on its toes," he muttered.1914, Peter B. Kyne, chapter 16, in The Long Chance. From the entry stew in one's juices
  • The wind carries whiffs of rotten egg.2025 December 29, Lindsay Jones, “A Newfoundland winter brings new risks to Coast Guard's biggest-ever operation. Crews at mercy of the…. From the entry container
  • My belief that something is rotten in the State of Denmark is bred by recent developments, both political and cultural.2016, Robin Morgan, editor, Sisterhood Is Global […] , Open Road Media, →ISBN. From the entry something is rotten in the state of Denmark
  • And it wasn't Muffet's rotten soup odor, either.2013, Sarah Hines-Stephens, Jane B. Mason, A Dog and His Girl Mysteries #2: Dead Man's Best Friend, Scholastic Inc., →ISBN. From the entry sneeze
  • “Sometimes,” he hastened to explain, looking at Khadijah and me, stroking his beard, “the fruit at Gaia is slightly rotten.2013, Benjamin Nugent, Good Kids, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN. From the entry spritz

Meaning of rotten

  1. adjective Of perishable items, overridden with bacteria and other infectious agents.
  2. adjective In a state of decay.
  3. adjective Cruel, mean or immoral.

Full definition of rotten

Questions about rotten in a sentence

How do you use rotten in a sentence?
Rotten is used as an adjective and adverb. For example: “If you leave a bin unattended for a few weeks, the rubbish inside will turn rotten.”
What is a short sentence with rotten?
“That kid is spoilt rotten.”
What does rotten mean?
Rotten means of perishable items, overridden with bacteria and other infectious agents.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rotten (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use rotten in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/rotten. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.