How to Use decay in a Sentence

decay

1 of 2 verb

• She believes that the moral fiber of our society is decaying.
• The city's neighborhoods are decaying.
• Then the deer vanished, the docks decayed, the towers fell.
  — Campbell McGrath, The New Yorker, 20 Apr. 2020
• Species evolve, planets decay, and the ways of the past fall as the future evolves.
  — Eric Fuller, Forbes, 28 Dec. 2021
• The battery packs last about a decade and decay much faster if the car spends a lot of time parked.
  — Brendan McAleer, Car and Driver, 8 Oct. 2022
• All the goodies in the above-ground parts of plants should be allowed to fall to the ground and decay over the winter.
  — Jeff Lowenfels, Anchorage Daily News, 16 Sep. 2021
• And, as in the other study, the protein took longer to decay in human cells.
  — John Timmer, Ars Technica, 19 Sep. 2020
• However, the severe topping of the tree has led to decay through the heartwood of the trunk.
  — Neil Sperry, San Antonio Express-News, 2 Apr. 2021
• Of empires passed away; / The blood has turned their stones to rust, / Their glory to decay.
  — cleveland, 4 July 2022
• By that time, some of the nutrients and taste will most likely have decayed.
  — Kenneth Chang, New York Times, 6 Mar. 2020
• The more contact the atmosphere makes with the rocket stage, the faster its orbit will decay.
  — Jeffrey Kluger, Time, 5 May 2021
• Closed to students and staff in 1984, the once-bustling learning hub has for decades done nothing but decay and rot.
  — Mandy McLaren, The Courier-Journal, 12 Aug. 2021
• The benches are made of Ipe, a hardwood resistant to rot and decay.
  — Matt Wake | [e-mail], al, 6 May 2022
• These will decay this winter and your bushes will be all set.
  — Jeff Lowenfels, Anchorage Daily News, 30 Sep. 2021
• Their faces begin to decay and their eyes are swallowed up.
  — Shannon Carlin, refinery29.com, 13 Oct. 2020
• Dead roots would tend to be more brown and dried-out looking and starting to decay after 13 months of cover.
  — Tim Johnson, chicagotribune.com, 31 Oct. 2021
• The artifacts of the past are as prone to damage and decay as our memories, which is all the more reason to cherish them in the present.
  — Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times, 18 Aug. 2022
• Pumpkins decay quickly if the stems are broken off rather then cut.
  — Jim Gilbert, Star Tribune, 22 Oct. 2020
• There is grace and beauty and virtue and comfort in this world, de Wilde seems to be saying, but also hypocrisy and the smelliness of flesh born to decay.
  — Ted Scheinman, Smithsonian Magazine, 5 Mar. 2020
• The former 12-bedroom home of the Duke and Duchess of York (a wedding gift from the Queen) was sold for 15 million pounds after their divorce and left to decay.
  — Danielle Tullo, House Beautiful, 12 Sep. 2022
• But, weirdly, legacy is tricky, and learning the bad doesn’t always decay the good.
  — USA Today, 21 Jan. 2021
• Normally nutrients taken up by plants from the soil are put back when the plants dies and decay.
  — Jeff Lowenfels, Anchorage Daily News, 18 Aug. 2022
• Levine doesn’t hide aging and decay, yet her work is a vision of perfection.
  — Washington Post, 11 June 2021
• Near it, the remnants of wooden buildings are splintering and decaying in the sun.
  — AZCentral.com, 5 Dec. 2019
• Buildings decay and need to be rebuilt every 50 years or so.
  — John H. Cochrane, National Review, 3 Sep. 2021
• Well, to clean up, yes, but because the stuff really is supposed to decay and return nutrients to the soil, not get hauled off to the dump.
  — Jeff Lowenfels, Anchorage Daily News, 7 Oct. 2021
• Dead raccoons were decaying on the rain shelf of the chimney, a concern that Schamens said is less common today.
  — Eddie Morales, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 5 Mar. 2020
• Plastics don't decay in the environment and may stay over 100 years...
  — Nimi Princewill, CNN, 15 June 2021
• This process is driven by the weak force, and since the early 1900s, physicists sought an explanation for why and how atoms decay.
  — John Conway, The Conversation, 14 Apr. 2022
• Tropical storms and hurricanes, which draw fuel from the warm water of the open ocean, decay over land.
  — David Fleshler, sun-sentinel.com, 13 Aug. 2021

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decay

2 of 2 noun

• She writes about the moral decay of our society.
• The city's neighborhoods are in slow decay.
• This is a slow process for the tree and decay takes decades.
  — oregonlive, 6 Aug. 2023
• While the decay was years in the making, the end came quickly.
  — Marion Halftermeyer, Fortune, 19 Mar. 2023
• Rust is inevitable, but there is a way to keep the decay at bay.
  — Tony Carrick, Popular Mechanics, 23 Mar. 2023
• There could also be decay or a wound at the break point.
  — Adithi Ramakrishnan, Dallas News, 14 Sep. 2023
• For me, the larger concern is the decay of my healthy habits.
  — Jonathan Wolfe, New York Times, 23 Nov. 2022
• Leaving food in your mouth overnight is (a) gross and (b) a recipe for tooth decay.
  — Drew Schwartz, SELF, 10 Feb. 2023
• Wear and tear is inevitable, and decay is part of being alive.
  — Raven Smith, Vogue, 22 Mar. 2023
• The time was this week, with doubt piling up like fall leaves, giving off a sign of death and decay.
  — Nate Atkins, The Indianapolis Star, 14 Nov. 2022
• The unique texture of the Stix cleans and polishes your dog's teeth to prevent plaque buildup and tooth decay.
  — Amber Smith, Discover Magazine, 4 July 2023
• Whole fruits and vegetables that show no signs of decay.
  — Susan Selasky, Detroit Free Press, 25 Aug. 2023
• The surroundings are matched by the decay of their owners, who have no idea how to run a business.
  — William Earl, Variety, 9 June 2023
• This process of decay has not been linear or uniform across the island.
  — IEEE Spectrum, 27 Jan. 2023
• The best way to shorten that decay time is to fill the room with as much soft, porous mass as possible.
  — Parker Hall, WIRED, 9 Mar. 2023
• Still, when the room was searched again on June 29, a team of cadaver dogs signaled the smell of human decay.
  — Brenna Ehrlich, Rolling Stone, 10 Mar. 2023
• Make the cuts flush with the remaining branches, also with the trunk to minimize the chances of decay.
  — Neil Sperry, San Antonio Express-News, 5 May 2023
• And because the show delights in gore, the king’s decay is a ghoulish and graphic affair.
  — Lorraine Ali, Los Angeles Times, 9 Oct. 2022
• And retraining the models and other methods to stop the decay didn’t help.
  — Katie Palmer, STAT, 10 Oct. 2023
• Plus, it's made of cypress, a type of wood that resists decay and insects.
  — Jamie Weissman, Better Homes & Gardens, 14 Nov. 2022
• Due to the decay, the face could not be recognized, nor could age be determined.
  — David Reamer | Alaska History, Anchorage Daily News, 17 Sep. 2023
• Think about the scavenger bird and images of disease and decay soon follow.
  — Gertrude Kitongo, CNN, 22 Feb. 2024
• In the mythology, the elves saw their world decay as magic slowly faded across the ages.
  — Christopher Ceccolini, SPIN, 13 Oct. 2022
• Fluoride has been added to city water to prevent tooth decay since the 1950s.
  — Emily Goodykoontz, Anchorage Daily News, 8 Feb. 2023
• The novel opens at the story’s end, as the authorities find three bodies in varying states of decay in the woods.
  — Gabino Iglesias, New York Times, 25 Jan. 2024
• His room was searched again during the weekend of June 29, and a team of cadaver dogs signaled the smell of human decay.
  — Brenna Ehrlich, Rolling Stone, 18 Oct. 2022
• Previously, people had thought a berry that was dark was a sign of its decay.
  — Devorah Lev-Tov, Smithsonian Magazine, 22 Nov. 2023
• Here is a nice summary of wood decay and tree response.
  — oregonlive, 6 Aug. 2023
• As the wood decays, paint can bubble up or flake off, and wood can begin warping or bending.
  — Brittany Anas, House Beautiful, 27 July 2023
• Well, land and water, birth and decay, and laughter unto death—how a story keeps us rapt until the very end.
  — Vinson Cunningham, The New Yorker, 6 Feb. 2023

Last Updated: 3 May 2024