gangrene
Americannoun
-
gangrenes
plural
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necrosis or death of soft tissue due to obstructed circulation, usually followed by decomposition and putrefaction.
-
moral or spiritual corruption and decadence that pervades an individual or group.
“This church body has been afflicted with a spiritual gangrene that is poisoning our relationship with the Lord,” the preacher expostulated.
- Synonyms:
- degeneracy, depravity, rot, decay
verb (used with or without object)
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gangrenes,
present (3rd person singular)
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gangrened,
past participle, past
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gangrening
present participle
noun
-
death and decay of tissue as the result of interrupted blood supply, disease, or injury
-
moral decay or corruption
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
gangrenesimple
-
gangrenessimple
-
have gangrenedperfect
-
has gangrenedperfect
-
am gangreningprogressive
-
are gangreningprogressive
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is gangreningprogressive
-
have been gangreningperfect progressive
-
has been gangreningperfect progressive
Past
-
gangrenedsimple
-
had gangrenedperfect
-
was gangreningprogressive
-
were gangreningprogressive
-
had been gangreningperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of gangrene
First recorded in 1535–45; from Middle French gangrene (earlier cancrene ), from Latin gangraena, from Greek gángraina “an eating sore”
Compare meaning
How does gangrene compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
You don't want gangrene, that's for sure. It's the infection that can develop around a wound that kills the tissue, turning it into a terrible stinking sore. In the days before antibiotics even the smallest scratch could lead to gangrene, and doctors would often cut off a finger or even a limb and then seal it with a red hot poker rather than risk the infection spreading. Special surgeons known as sawbones were famed for the speed they could amputate a limb to avoid gangrene setting in. Enough to stop you ever being nostalgic about the good old days.
Vocabulary lists containing gangrene
The Things They Carried
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Salt to the Sea
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National Nurses Week: Medical Branches and Conditions
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
He learned to patch up injured men in below-deck sea cabins, where gangrene turned a wound black and rotten.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 6, 2026
On 28 June, the family were told Mr Trotter had a condition called Fournier's gangrene and nothing more could be done.
From BBC ● Jan. 20, 2026
Nursing employees told the investigators that the 69-year-old man, who had been admitted with gangrene on his feet, was often confused and sometimes tried to pull out his tubes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 20, 2025
Her lower legs were amputated after she developed gangrene at age 7.
From Seattle Times ● May 15, 2024
The doctor tells Mr. Hannon he has to go to the hospital or it’s a case of gangrene he’ll have and the doctor won’t be responsible.
From "Angela's Ashes: A Memoir" by Frank McCourt
For fungous flesh, it promotes discharge, and destroys both gangrenes and carbuncles.
From The Leper in England: with some account of English lazar-houses by Robert Charles Hope
The 'mind,' somehow, causes gangrenes, if not cancers, paralysis, shrinking of tissues; the mind, somehow, cures them.
From The Making of Religion by Andrew Lang
Oftener than not it gangrenes, and there is loss of sound tissue and the setting-up of strange and malevolent growth.
From The Quickening by E. M. Ashe
Crutches, and itches, and leprosies, and ulcers, and gangrenes, and running sores, praise ye the Lord, for to-night ye have saved our Archbishop! 1ST BEGGAR.
From Becket and other plays by Alfred Tennyson, Baron Tennyson
Fabricius takes the occasion to give a caution to young surgeons, to avoid being too sanguine in predicting recovery from gangrenes.
From North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 by Franklin Bache
One man came limping in, unassisted, on a gangrened leg teeming with worms.
From "Kaffir Boy: An Autobiography" by Mark Mathabane
Its leather was dry-rotted with age and the brass C. S. A. on the outer flap was gangrened and sunken in; the flap curled up stiffly, like an old shoe sole.
From The Escape of Mr. Trimm His Plight and other Plights by Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury) Cobb
The convention," said Robespierre, in his reply to the deputation, "in the situation in which it now stands, gangrened by corruption, and being wholly unable to recover itself, cannot save the republic-both must perish.
From History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 by M. (François-Auguste-Marie-Alexis) Mignet
Were half my body gangrened, I would not smite nor reproach it, but seek with patience an available remedy.
From A Trip to Cuba by Julia Ward Howe
Agathocles, the tyrant of Syracuse, was given by the treacherous Maenon a poisoned toothpick which soon rendered his mouth incurably gangrened, and deprived him of the power of speech.
From The Last Words of Distinguished Men and Women (Real and Traditional) by Frederic Rowland Marvin
It drags upon me like a prisoner's gangrening fetter, and I'm getting tired of it.
From To-morrow? by Victoria Cross
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
