Definitions

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

  • adjective Being in a state of decline or decay.
  • adjective Marked by or providing unrestrained gratification; self-indulgent.
  • adjective Of or relating to literary Decadence.
  • noun A person in a condition or process of mental or moral decay.
  • noun A member of the Decadence movement.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Falling away; decaying; deteriorating.
  • noun One who or that which exhibits decadence or deterioration; specifically, one whose literary or artistic work is supposed to show the marks of national or general decadence: applied especially to a certain group of French writers and artists.

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

  • noun One that is decadent, or deteriorating; esp., one characterized by, or exhibiting, the qualities of those who are degenerating to a lower type; -- specif. applied to a certain school of modern French writers.
  • adjective Decaying; deteriorating.

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

  • adjective Characterized by moral or cultural decline.
  • adjective Luxuriously self-indulgent.
  • noun A person affected by moral decay.

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

  • adjective marked by excessive self-indulgence and moral decay
  • noun a person who has fallen into a decadent state (morally or artistically)

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French décadent, back-formation from décadence, decadence; see decadence.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

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

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Examples

Comments

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  • three and a third tridents

    November 7, 2007

  • Is a dodecadent, then, 12 tridents?

    November 7, 2007

  • Somebody tell the good people at Red Lobster that shrimp and scallops cannot be decadent!

    December 4, 2007

  • Or can they? Maybe the good people at Red Lobster know something you don't know.

    March 2, 2008

  • I think I may have seen your scallops at a recent holiday bash, drinking it up.

    March 3, 2008

  • With the boisterous oysters?

    March 3, 2008

  • Boisterous roistering oysters?

    September 20, 2008

  • "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 used to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests. Finally, words must be so twisted as to justify an empire that has now ceased to exist, much less make sense."

    — Gore Vidal, 'Imperial America', 2004.

    February 17, 2009

  • Daffynition: Possessing only ten teeth. (deca-dent)

    June 16, 2012