Rot"ten, a. Etym: [Icel. rotinn; akin to Sw. rutten, Dan. radden. See Rot.]
Definition: Having rotted; putrid; decayed; as, a rotten apple; rotten meat. Hence: (a) Offensive to the smell; fetid; disgusting. You common cry or curs! whose breath I hate As reek of the rotten fens. Shak.
(b) Not firm or trusty; unsound; defective; treacherous; unsafe; as, a rotten plank, bone, stone. "The deepness of the rotten way." Knolles. Rotten borough. See under Borough.
– Rotten stone (Min.), a soft stone, called also Tripoli (from the country from which it was formerly brought), used in all sorts of finer grinding and polishing in the arts, and for cleaning metallic substances. The name is also given to other friable siliceous stones applied to like uses.
Syn.
– Putrefied; decayed; carious; defective; unsound; corrupt; deceitful; treacherous.
– Rot"ten*ly, adv.
– Rot"ten*ness, n.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
29 March 2025
(adjective) without care or thought for others; “the thoughtless saying of a great princess on being informed that the people had no bread; ‘Let them eat cake’”
The Boston Tea Party helped popularize coffee in America. The hefty tea tax imposed on the colonies in 1773 resulted in America switching from tea to coffee. In the lead up to the Revolutionary War, it became patriotic to sip java instead of tea. The Civil War made the drink more pervasive. Coffee helped energize tired troops, and drinking it became an expression of freedom.
