MOULDER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does moulder mean? 

• MOULDER (verb)
  The verb MOULDER has 1 sense:

1. break down

  Familiarity information: MOULDER used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MOULDER (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they moulder    ... he / she / it moulders   
Past simple: mouldered   
Past participle: mouldered   
-ing form: mouldering   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Break down

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

decompose; molder; moulder; rot

Context example:

The bodies decomposed in the heat

Hypernyms (to "moulder" is one way to...):

decay (undergo decay or decomposition)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "moulder"):

biodegrade (break down naturally through the action of biological agents)

hang (suspend (meat) in order to get a gamey taste)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Something ----s something

 Context examples 

When I lighted my candles, he fell into meek transports with the room that was revealed to him; and when I heated the coffee in an unassuming block-tin vessel in which Mrs. Crupp delighted to prepare it (chiefly, I believe, because it was not intended for the purpose, being a shaving-pot, and because there was a patent invention of great price mouldering away in the pantry), he professed so much emotion, that I could joyfully have scalded him.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

And far better that crows and ravens—if any ravens there be in these regions—should pick my flesh from my bones, than that they should be prisoned in a workhouse coffin and moulder in a pauper's grave.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

There was a main gateway of lichen-studded stone, each side pillar surmounted by mouldering heraldic emblems, but besides this central carriage drive I observed several points where there were gaps in the hedge and paths leading through them.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I, too, in the grey, small, antique structure, with its low roof, its latticed casements, its mouldering walls, its avenue of aged firs—all grown aslant under the stress of mountain winds; its garden, dark with yew and holly—and where no flowers but of the hardiest species would bloom—found a charm both potent and permanent.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)