verb ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Verb

1. 1
   To make worse; to impair. transitive

   "Near-synonyms: aggravate, exacerbate; degrade, deteriorate; see also Thesaurus:aggravate"

2. 2
   grow worse wordnet
3. 3
   To become worse; to get worse. intransitive

   "The weather has worsened."

4. 4
   make worse wordnet
5. 5
   To get the better of; to worst. obsolete, transitive

Synonyms

All synonyms

declineaggravateaggravatebetterdeclineexacerbate

Antonyms

All antonyms

abetamelioratebetterdevolve

Example

More examples

"They were apprehensive that the situation would worsen."

Etymology

From Middle English wursnen; equivalent to worse + -en.

Related phrases

get better of

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