Decadence

noun

noun ·3 syllables ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A state of moral or artistic decline or deterioration; decay countable, uncountable

    ""Stability, however, is not enough. It leads too easily to stagnation, and thence to decadence.""

  2. 2
    the state of being degenerate in mental or moral qualities wordnet
  3. 3
    The quality of being luxuriously self-indulgent. countable, uncountable

    "the decadence of a five-star hotel"

Synonyms

All synonyms
degeneracydescentdecayabandonabandonmentabjection

Example

More examples

"Mistaking cadenza with decadence would be a great mistake."

Etymology

From French décadence, from Medieval Latin decadentia (“decay”), from *decadens (“decaying”), present participle of *decadere (“to decay”); see decay.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.