Definition of "putrefaction" [pu•tre•fac•tion]

• Decomposition of organic matter, especially protein, by microorganisms, resulting in production of foul-smelling matter. (noun)
• Putrefied matter. (noun)
• The condition of being putrefied. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "He was looking at it as though it were an animal, days dead and far gone in putrefaction, that had been malevolently dumped on a pristine altar consecrated to solemn rituals and tended to by votaries of an elite cult."
• "He (that is, man) as a rotten thing, the principle of whose putrefaction is in itself, consumes, even like a moth-eaten garment, which becomes continually worse and worse."
• "Man is not pure for he is a worm, hatched in putrefaction, and therefore odious to God."