corruption

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The act or process of corrupting.
• noun The state of being corrupt.
• noun Decay; rot.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun The act of corrupting, or the state of being corrupt or putrid; the destruction of the natural form of an organic body by decomposition accompanied by putrefaction; physical dissolution.
• noun Putrid matter; pus.
• noun Depravity; wickedness; perversion or extinction of moral principles; loss of purity or integrity.
• noun Debasement or deterioration.
• noun Perversion; vitiation: as, a corruption of language.
• noun A corrupt or debased form of a word: as, “sparrow-grass” is a corruption of “asparagus.”
• noun A perverting, vitiating, or depraving influence; more specifically, bribery.
• noun In law, taint; impurity or defect (of heritable blood) in consequence of an act of attainder of treason or felony, by which a person is disabled from inheriting lands from an ancestor, and can neither retain those in his possession nor transmit them by descent to his heirs.
• noun Synonyms Putrefaction, putrescence.
• noun Pollution, defilement, contamination, vitiation, demoralization, foulness, baseness.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun The act of corrupting or making putrid, or state of being corrupt or putrid; decomposition or disorganization, in the process of putrefaction; putrefaction; deterioration.
• noun The product of corruption; putrid matter.
• noun The act of corrupting or of impairing integrity, virtue, or moral principle; the state of being corrupted or debased; loss of purity or integrity; depravity; wickedness; impurity; bribery.
• noun The act of changing, or of being changed, for the worse; departure from what is pure, simple, or correct.
• noun (Law) taint or impurity of blood, in consequence of an act of attainder of treason or felony, by which a person is disabled from inheriting any estate or from transmitting it to others.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun The act of corrupting or of impairing integrity, virtue, or moral principle; the state of being corrupted or debased; loss of purity or integrity; depravity; wickedness; impurity; bribery.
• noun The act of corrupting or making putrid, or state of being corrupt or putrid; decomposition or disorganization, in the process of putrefaction; putrefaction; deterioration.
• noun The product of corruption; putrid matter.
• noun The decomposition of biological matter.
• noun computing The destruction of data by manipulation of parts of it, either by deliberate or accidental human action or by imperfections in storage or transmission media.
• noun The act of changing, or of being changed, for the worse; departure from what is pure, simple, or correct; as, a corruption of style; corruption in language.
• noun linguistics A debased or nonstandard form of a word, expression, or text, resulting from misunderstanding, transcription error, mishearing, etc.
• noun Something that is evil but is supposed to be good.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun decay of matter (as by rot or oxidation)
• noun lack of integrity or honesty (especially susceptibility to bribery); use of a position of trust for dishonest gain
• noun destroying someone's (or some group's) honesty or loyalty; undermining moral integrity
• noun moral perversion; impairment of virtue and moral principles
• noun inducement (as of a public official) by improper means (as bribery) to violate duty (as by commiting a felony)
• noun in a state of progressive putrefaction