rottern.

1566 J. Barthlet Pedegrewe Heretiques f. 55^v (heading) Accident rotters.

1587 L. Mascall First Bk. Cattell 239 (margin) Rotters of sheepe.

1611 R. Cotgrave Dict. French & Eng. Tongues Pourrisseur, a rotter; and, particularly, the spotted,..short-tailed Serpent, Seps.

1647 R. Fanshawe tr. B. Guarini Pastor Fido iv. viii. 151 Rotter of soul and body, enemie Of reason.

1751 B. Holloway Originals Physical & Theol. I. 213 They, are Gods Mechanical Agents, and Subject to his Direction, and Controul: And, when set for Gods, (instead of giving Rain, Glory, Beauty,) are, for Punishment of their Worshippers Crime, frequently made Dryers, Rotters, Disgracers, [etc.].

1847 R. N. Greaves Duke of Milan i. iii. 12 Rain is a rotter, sir; a foe to steel. I have known one drop of rain upon the blade cost a man his life.

1906 School World June 237/2 I have heard all manner of charges levelled against it, as a rotter of clothes and a destroyer of test-tubes.

1977 Austin (Minnesota) Herald 14 Dec. 9/1 Candy, available as an occasional reward, is suddenly a rotter of teeth when procured by the child himself.

2006 S. Parker Microlife that rots Things 29 Keeping things clean and dry helps to stop decay. It removes the tiny spores of fungi and other rotters, which float in air and hide in dirt.

1879 G. Hamilton-Browne Lost Legionary in S. Afr. i. iii. 26 I thoroughly despise..a man, who whines about the roughness of his rations,..or of having to bed down in the rain and mud... Bad scran to a rotter of that sort, he is quite out of place at the front.

1894 G. Moore Esther Waters xl A regular rotter; that man is about as bad as they make 'em.

1900 G. Swift Somerley 155 He liked his mother and sisters..: all other women he classed as ‘rotters’.

1935 B. Johnston Let. 30 Jan. (1998) 152 Even though he himself thought Ramsay a rotter, someone ought to have got up at the time to back him up.

1951 L. P. Hartley My Fellow Devils xix. 292 You threw over a good man to marry a rotter, because he was rich and famous.

1989 J. P. Walsh School for Lovers (1996) 13 But a bet doesn't have to be symmetrical, dear boy. That would be very unfair as between a rich old rotter like me, and a young sprig such as you.

2008 Age (Melbourne) (Nexis) 26 June 46 [He]..seems every inch the rotter—treating women like dirt and advising his callers to sleep around.

1901 W. E. Henley Hawthorn & Lavender 62 An old, black rotter of a boat..Lay stranded in mid-stream.

1916 Trees, Fruits, & Flowers Minnesota 44 144 Most of these fine varieties [of plum] are notoriously bad rotters.

2008 Sunday Times (Nexis) 14 Dec. 22 The thing about storing any crop is that once you've seen a rotter, you've got to take it out or it will spread to the rest of the batch.