as in decomposition
the process by which dead organic matter separates into simpler substances
clearing the refrigerator of what the previous tenant had left behind was like taking a course in the advanced putrefaction of leftovers
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Recent Examples of putrefaction
When the surgeons finally opened her with a piece of broken glass, the putrefaction was as warm as life.
—
Nell Zink, Harper's Magazine, 28 Feb. 2025
Kellogg’s thinking on constipation, that anything less than three bowel movements a day risked dangerous intestinal putrefaction, was shaped by the emerging germ theory of disease and the ascent of bacteriology as a discipline through the closing decades of the 19th century.
—Elsa Richardson, TIME, 3 Oct. 2024
Here was an artist drawn irresistibly to executions and corpses, dismemberment and putrefaction.
—airmail.news, 20 Apr. 2024
Not the smell of putrefaction, though the novel is littered with rotting corpses.
—Nathaniel Rich, The New York Review of Books, 30 Nov. 2023
See All Example Sentences for putrefaction
Nell Zink, Harper's Magazine, 28 Feb. 2025
Kellogg’s thinking on constipation, that anything less than three bowel movements a day risked dangerous intestinal putrefaction, was shaped by the emerging germ theory of disease and the ascent of bacteriology as a discipline through the closing decades of the 19th century.
—Elsa Richardson, TIME, 3 Oct. 2024
Here was an artist drawn irresistibly to executions and corpses, dismemberment and putrefaction.
—airmail.news, 20 Apr. 2024
Not the smell of putrefaction, though the novel is littered with rotting corpses.
—Nathaniel Rich, The New York Review of Books, 30 Nov. 2023
See All Example Sentences for putrefaction
Recent Examples of Synonyms for putrefaction
Noun
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Before storing the bodies in the crawl space, Gacy used lime to hasten the bodies' decomposition.—
Caroline Blair,
PEOPLE,
20 Oct. 2025
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An anthology of first memories, a meditation on decomposition, spinning constellations—every stanza grapples with change on a private or galactic scale.—
Helen Shaw,
New Yorker,
20 Oct. 2025
Noun
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Despite years of legal battles over the relocations, more than 150,000 bodies were exhumed from the 1920s to the early 1940s for the trip to Colma, each in various stages of decay.—
Chris Kenning,
USA Today,
25 Oct. 2025
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Why didn’t evolution produce a more dependable version of the human body, less prone to malfunction and decay?—
Lucinda Rosenfeld,
New Yorker,
25 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Putrefaction.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/putrefaction. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.
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