dilapidating

present participle of dilapidate

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for dilapidating
Verb
  • By the time it was all set up, the whole cold, disintegrating place was threaded with lights and lines, flickering everywhere, black and red, the sheer quantity somehow terrifying and embracing at once.
    Blair Braverman, Outside, 28 Oct. 2025
  • This difference sounds small, but preventing a few tenths of a degree of warming could keep polar ice caps from completely disintegrating, coral reefs from collapsing and other tipping points from triggering.
    Syris Valentine, Scientific American, 16 Oct. 2025
Verb
  • Bugs and scientists have long been oddball allies in the effort to understand decomposing bodies, but there's a catch.
    Phaedra Trethan, USA Today, 29 Oct. 2025
  • The round spots seemed neat compared with their surroundings, clear of the layers of decomposing plankton spotted elsewhere on the seafloor.
    Ashley Strickland, CNN Money, 29 Oct. 2025
Verb
  • But then a fresh corpse turns up, as well as a long-moldering skeleton, and the club members are off and running.
    Tom Gliatto, People.com, 27 Aug. 2025
Verb
  • The local politicians like Mayor Wu who are staying mum are just compounding cronyism and degrading the livability of the neighborhood.
    Lou Murray, Boston Herald, 29 Oct. 2025
  • Rain, wind gusts, birds and other atmospheric surprises during low-altitude flight might alter the inflowing air to the cruise missile, degrading the reactor.
    Dan Vergano, Scientific American, 28 Oct. 2025
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
Verb
  • In addition to rampant inflation, goods shortages, and a crumbling labor market, the liquid reserves held in Russia’s National Wealth Fund continue to decline precipitously, down to approximately $35 billion from $117 billion three years ago.
    Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Time, 22 Oct. 2025
  • The dilapidated wooden trim and sagging porticos were spruced up a few years ago after preservationists complained to the Landmarks Preservation Commission, but the upstairs windows reveal glimpses of peeling paint, crumbling plaster, and collapsing ceilings inside.
    Kim Velsey, Curbed, 20 Oct. 2025
Verb
  • Meanwhile, the returns on scaling up chatbots are, at present, diminishing.
    Matteo Wong, The Atlantic, 30 Oct. 2025
  • Adopting China’s position in this way would be a blunder, diminishing Taiwan’s resolve to resist Chinese aggression and coercion.
    STEPHEN WERTHEIM, Foreign Affairs, 28 Oct. 2025
Verb
  • But the church also taught that the power of music could be corrupting.
    Vann R. Newkirk II, The Atlantic, 18 Oct. 2025
  • Tales From Beyond the Pale co-creator Glenn McQuaid unleashes a Jason Voorhees whose appearance is concealed not by a hockey mask but a squiggly blur of video noise, corrupting the handheld footage of him stalking college kids through the woods.
    A.A. Dowd, Vulture, 3 Oct. 2025
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

Cite this Entry

“Dilapidating.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/dilapidating. Accessed 7 Nov. 2025.

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!