noun, verb ·3 syllables ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A worse situation; an aggravation or deterioration countable, uncountable
2. 2
   changing something with the result that it becomes worse wordnet
3. 3
   process of changing to an inferior state wordnet

Verb

1. 1
   present participle and gerund of worsen form-of, gerund, participle, present

Adjective

1. 1
   changing for the worse wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

deteriorationabout faceabout-faceaccommodationadaptationadjustment

Antonyms

All antonyms

self-limitingbetteringimprovement

Example

More examples

"From year to year, pollution is worsening."

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