n. 1. A process, condition, or period of deterioration or decline, as in morals or art; decay. 2. often Decadence A literary movement especially of late 19th-century France and England characterized by refined aestheticism, artifice, and the quest for new sensations. [French décadence, from Old French decadence, from Medieval Latin dēcadentia, a decaying, declining, from Vulgar Latin *dēcadere, to decay; see DECAY.] |
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