noun
- 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.
verb (used with or without object), gan·grened, gan·gren·ing.
- to affect or become affected with gangrene.
noun
- death and decay of tissue as the result of interrupted blood supply, disease, or injury
- moral decay or corruption
verb
- to become or cause to become affected with gangrene
1540s, from Latin gangraena, from Greek gangraina “an eating or gnawing sore,” literally “that which eats away,” reduplicated form of gran- “to gnaw,” from PIE root *gras- (see gastric).
n.
- Death and decay of body tissue, often in a limb, caused by insufficient blood supply and usually following injury or disease.
- Death of tissue in a living body, especially in a limb, caused by a bacterial infection resulting from a blockage of the blood supply to the affected tissue.
The death and decay of body tissue owing to insufficient supply of blood.