dilapidating

verb

present participle of dilapidate
as in disintegrating

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Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for dilapidating
  1. disintegrating
  2. decomposing
  3. moldering
  4. degrading
  5. putrefying
  6. crumbling
  7. diminishing
  8. corrupting
Verb
  • Others rot in the California sun, disintegrating into bony fragments.
    — Jack Flemming, Los Angeles Times, 15 July 2026
  • The experiments have shown how a self-repair mechanism enables the spindle to stabilize itself under force and avoid disintegrating.
    — Jake Buehler, Quanta Magazine, 29 June 2026
Definition of disintegrating
Verb
  • In the mornings, our counselors still walk, slowly now, through the stench of bodies decomposing under the ruins of schools, mosques, and homes.
    — James Gordon, Time, 14 July 2026
  • The decomposing body of a woman was found in an alley in Chicago's Back of the Yards community this weekend.
    — Dylan Olsen, CBS News, 12 July 2026
Definition of decomposing
Verb
  • Developer John Dewberry is responsible for the site, and has a reputation for leaving half-finished, moldering construction projects in his wake.
    — AJ Willingham, AJC.com, 15 July 2026
  • They were set in crumbling castles and moldering dungeons—that is, amid the rubble of a collapsing social order.
    — Becca Rothfeld, New Yorker, 1 June 2026
Definition of moldering
Verb
  • Overtourism can be highly problematic for cities, threatening to drive housing crises via short-term rentals, straining infrastructure to the breaking point and degrading local culture.
    — Roger Sands, Forbes.com, 8 July 2026
  • The material can power reactions such as oxidizing organic molecules, potentially degrading pollutants, sterilizing surfaces, or enabling photocatalytic chemistry to continue later in the dark.
    — New Atlas, New Atlas, 3 July 2026
Definition of degrading
Verb
  • Because lose-lose situations are so endemic to the genre, a hint of relief can sometimes accompany the prospect of surrender to the putrefying mob.
    — Katy Waldman, New Yorker, 9 Aug. 2025
Definition of putrefying
Verb
  • These properties have enabled the likes of the Pantheon, ancient Roman aqueducts, and even parts of the Colosseum to survive two millennia, while some Brutalist buildings from the 1960s that were made from modern concrete are crumbling.
    — Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Britannica, 9 July 2026
  • Throughout the album, mary in the junkyard shift constantly, moving from crumbling atmospheric experiments to cloudy Pacific Northwest indie rock to the kind of straightforward classical guitar poems of Leonard Cohen’s early albums.
    — Sadie Sartini Garner, Pitchfork, 7 July 2026
Definition of crumbling
Verb
  • Weakening high pressure to our east is slowly reducing scorching hot temperatures from earlier this week and diminishing the monsoonal moisture that provided unseasonable rain showers and thunderstorms.
    — Sean Macaday, Sacbee.com, 17 July 2026
  • In Miami-Dade, the transit system faces financial woes Aside from diminishing Miami-Dade’s transit ambitions, the Levine Cava plan also highlights the dire financial picture facing mass transit in the county.
    — Douglas Hanks, Miami Herald, 16 July 2026
Definition of diminishing
Verb
  • Character also involves standing up to people who are bankrupting and corrupting this country.
    — CBS News, CBS News, 31 May 2026
  • An early discussion about social contracts comes down to us in Plato’s dialogue Crito in which Socrates, condemned to death for allegedly corrupting the youth, refused an offer to escape from prison.
    — George G. Szpiro, Big Think, 9 Apr. 2026
Definition of corrupting
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Browse Nearby Words

dilapidates
dilapidating
dilapidation
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Cite this Entry

“Dilapidating.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/dilapidating. Accessed 20 Jul. 2026.

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