Decadent

English

Adjective

Decadent (comparative more Decadent, superlative most Decadent)

1. Characterized by moral or cultural decline.
   • Gore Vidal - The Decline and Fall of the American Empire (1992)

     As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.

2. Luxuriously self-indulgent.
   • Hedonismbot in the Futurama episode The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings

     Surgery in an opera? How wonderfully decadent! And just as I was beginning to lose interest!

Noun

Decadent (plural Decadents)

1. A person affected by moral decay.

Adverbs for Decadent

cankerously; decrepitly; effetely; corrosively; corruptibly; irreparably; incurably; irremediably; lamentably; deplorably; pitifully; viciously; degenerately; corruptly; unbelievably; astoundingly; pitiably; hopelessly.

Thesaurus

abandoned, coming apart, contaminated, corrupt, corrupted, cracking, crumbling, debased, debauched, decaying, declining, degenerate, degenerating, degenerative, degraded, depraved, deteriorating, disintegrating, dissipated, dissolute, draining, drooping, dwindling, ebbing, effete, fading, failing, falling, falling off, flagging, fragmenting, going to pieces, immoral, languishing, marcescent, morally polluted, on the wane, perverted, pining, polluted, profligate, regressive, reprobate, retrograde, retrogressive, rotten, self-indulgent, shriveling, sinking, sliding, slipping, slumping, steeped in iniquity, subsiding, tabetic, tainted, vice-corrupted, vitiated, waning, warped, wasting, wilting, withering, worsening

Etymology

Back-formation from decadence, from Medieval Latin decadentia, from Late Latin decadens (“decadens”), present participle of Late Latin decado (“sink, fall”). Cognate with French décadent

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈdɛkədənt/, SAMPA: /"dEk@d@nt/

Translations

Adjective

Characterized by moral or cultural decline

Bulgarian: упадъчен (bg) German: dekadent (de) Icelandic: hnignandi m., f., and n.; hrörnandi m., f., and n.; spilltur m., spillt f., spillt n.; úrkynjaður m., úrkynjuð f., úrkynjað n.

Italian: decadente (it)

Luxuriously self-indulgent

German: dekadent (de)

Noun

person affected by moral decay

Bulgarian: декадент (bg) m.

Italian: decadentista (it) m.

Related terms

• decadence
• decay

Anagrams

• decanted