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
-
is gangreningprogressive
-
have been gangreningperfect progressive
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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 was taken to hospital where a surgeon told his parents Prince Charles and Princess Diana had just had baby boy - before breaking the news that Mark had gangrene in his leg.
From BBC ● Aug. 20, 2026
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
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
His right foot recovered, but on his left foot gangrene had set in in the toes.
From "Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World" by Jennifer Armstrong
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
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
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
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
But there come gangrenes in the heart, or perhaps in the pocket.
From Dr. Wortle's School by Anthony Trollope
One man came limping in, unassisted, on a gangrened leg teeming with worms.
From "Kaffir Boy: An Autobiography" by Mark Mathabane
A nearer glance shows the house-walls stained and gangrened with rot and mildew, the river-floods often shaking hands with the rains in the ground-floors.
From To the Gold Coast for Gold A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Volume I by Sir Richard Francis Burton
It has an aspect like gangrened or scabrous flesh.
From Toilers of the Sea by Victor Hugo
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
Then in the midst of the discussion the King had a twinge in his gangrened knee, and signed Forstner's release, in order to be rid of this pertinacious princess.
From A German Pompadour Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Grävenitz, Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg by Hon. Agnes Blanche Marie Hay
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.
