deteriorating

1. 1
   adjective

   Growing worse in quality, condition, or state over time.

   The museum struggled to protect its deteriorating manuscripts from further damage.

   Negotiators met against a backdrop of deteriorating relations between the two countries.

   Similarcrumbling

   Oppositeimproving

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of deteriorate.

   The coastline is slowly deteriorating under constant erosion.

   Investors grew nervous as the company's finances kept deteriorating.

   Note

   The verb form carries both halves of deteriorate. Intransitively it means growing worse (relations are deteriorating), and transitively it takes an object and means making something worse (salt air deteriorating the paint). Before a noun, as in deteriorating conditions, the word moves toward the adjective 'getting worse', which alone can be graded: more deteriorating, most deteriorating. After be, without an object, it remains the progressive verb.

   Years of neglect were deteriorating the old bridge.

   Constant handling is deteriorating the fragile pages.

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