decomposition

What it means

1. countableuncountableA biological process through which organic material is reduced to e.g. compost.

   Before tearing up the property with machinery, the police conducted a screening at the site with specialised cadaver dogs. The dogs gave positive indications in specific areas of the property, indicating the scent of human decomposition.

   2026 July 27, Nicholas Muhoro, “The Disappearance of Kayla Berg and the Condemned House Where Her Trail Ended”, in Skip Boring, archived from the original on 28 Jul 2026

2. countableuncountableThe act of taking something apart, e.g. for analysis.

   Speech decomposition into a periodic and a non-periodic part is a subject of considerable importance with applications in speech synthesis, […]

   2005, Gerard Chollet, Anna Esposito, Marcos Faundez-Zanuy, Nonlinear Speech Modeling and Applications

3. countableuncountableThe splitting (of e.g. a matrix, an atom, or a compound) into constituent parts.

In a sentence

Before tearing up the property with machinery, the police conducted a screening at the site with specialised cadaver dogs. The dogs gave positive indications in specific areas of the property, indicating the scent of human decomposition.

2026 July 27, Nicholas Muhoro, “The Disappearance of Kayla Berg and the Condemned House Where Her Trail Ended”, in Skip Boring, archived from the original on 28 Jul 2026

Where it comes from

1. Proto-Indo-European*de
2. Proto-Indo-European*déh₁
3. Proto-Italic*dē
4. Latindē
5. Latindē-
6. Englishde-
7. Englishcomposition
8. Englishdecomposition

From de- + composition.