rotten
- 01 B1 Intermediate
adj.decayed and no longer good to eat or use.
adj.suffering from organic decay; decomposed or putrid.
Simple“The smell of rotten eggs filled the kitchen after the power cut.”
In context“The farmer had to discard the entire harvest of apples after a damp autumn left them rotten and covered in mould.”
SynonymsAntonyms - 02 B1 Intermediate
adj.very bad, unpleasant, or unfair.
adj.extremely unpleasant, poor in quality, or morally contemptible.
Simple“I felt rotten about missing my best friend's birthday party.”
In context“It was a rotten trick to play on someone who had been so consistently helpful to the team.”
- 03 C1 Advanced
- 04 B2 Upper Intermediate
adv.very much or to a great degree, usually with words like 'spoiled'.
adv.used as an intensifier to indicate an extreme or excessive degree.
Simple“That cat is spoiled rotten and refuses to eat anything but fresh fish.”
In context“As the only grandchild in the family, she was spoiled rotten by her grandparents every summer holiday.”
UsageAlmost exclusively used in the fixed phrase 'spoiled rotten'.
Synonyms
From Middle English roten, from Old Norse rotinn (“decayed, rotten”), past participle of an unrecorded verb related to Old Norse rotna (“to rot”) and Old English rotian (“to rot”), ultimately from Proto-Germanic *rutāną (“to rot”). See rot. By surface analysis, rot + -en (past participle).
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.