Definition of "gangrene"
gangrene
noun
countable and uncountable, plural gangrenes
verb
third-person singular simple present gangrenes, present participle gangrening, simple past and past participle gangrened
(transitive) To produce gangrene in.
Quotations
Vulneration or section sometimes procures a Gangrene, when the vital Principle is so debilitated, or enormous by the would, that instead of a good suppuration and vigorous transmutation, a depraved matter is generated, which corrupts and gangrenes the part: and thus a small cut of a finger or Toe hath gangrened, and killed the person: but in greater Wounds, the danger is greater, as more frequently to happen.
1682, Pains afflicting humane bodies, their various Difference, Causes, Parts affected, Signals of Danger or Safety, page 204
An intensely biting frost will gangrene the membrane ; a foggy state of the atmosphere, with low, black, stagnant exhalations, accompanied with sudden, frequent intermissions, interchanges, and oscillations of dryness and moisture, expansion and condensation, will corrupt and putrify both the membrane and the mucous discharge.
1762 December, John Chandler, “A Treatise of the Disease called a Cold”, in The critical review, or annals of literature, volume 12, page 423
(intransitive) To be affected with gangrene.
Quotations
If a man had a sore leg, and he should go to an honest, judicious chirurgeon, and he should only bid him keep it warm, and anoint it with such an oil, (an oil well known) that would do the cure; haply he would not much regard him, because he knows the medicine, beforehand an ordinary medicine; but if he should go to a surgeon that should tell him, your leg will gangrene within three days, and it must be cut off, and you will die, unless you do something that I could tell you, what listening there would be to this man?
1786, John Selden, Table Talk: Being the Discourses of John Selden
(transitive) To corrupt; To cause to become degenerate.
Quotations
That is true,” replied Almira, “nothing can be performed without labor, and where there is labor there will be discontent, and where there is no labor there will be heart-burning and jealousy about insignificant trifles, such as gangrenes the real pleasures of contemplation within these walls; walls, which would otherwise hold out an asylum, much to be prized by those who have been unfortunate, who have lost all their friends, or who are weary of the world."
1801, George Walker, The Three Spaniards
The Stuart Restoration period was a necessary sequence of the Puritan period, and there is a similar cause for the sensualism that gangrenes the heart of our morbidly prudish Society of to-day.
1889 July, John Miller, “The Abuse of Marriage”, in The Centennial Magazine: An Australian Monthly, volume 2, number 12, page 902