Deterioration

//dəˌti.ɹi.əˈɹeɪ.ʃən// noun

noun ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The process of making or growing worse, or the state of having grown worse. countable, uncountable

    "From 1945 onwards, deterioration in the condition of the brickwork in the arch soffits was kept under close observation, and in 1951 it was decided that strengthening must be undertaken."

  2. 2
    process of changing to an inferior state wordnet
  3. 3
    a symptom of reduced quality or strength wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
worseningdescentretrogressionaggravationabasementabout face

Example

More examples

"The deterioration of corporate earnings has yet to bottom out."

Etymology

Borrowed from French détérioration; morphologically deteriorate + -ion.

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