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Glite Dictionary
brown rot

brown rot

5.8
A disease caused by a fungus that makes fruit like peaches and plums turn brown and decay
  • noun
  • /braʊn rɑt/
  • Specialized
translation icon : pudrición marrón
  • The brown rot on the apples made them unfit for sale.

Examples

  • Farmers often struggle with brown rot affecting their peach and plum crops.

  • I saw the layers of brown rot blanketing the ground.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • You can identify brown rot by the brown, decaying spots on affected fruits.

Surface Forms

brown rot singular
brown rots plural

Morphology

brown + rot

The meaning 'a fungal disease causing tissues to turn brown and decay' is directly compositional from 'brown' (a colour/appearance) + 'rot' (decay/disease), so a learner who knows both words can infer it is a type of rot characterized by browning. This adjective+noun naming pattern for plant diseases is common cross-linguistically and follows normal English compounding, making it immediately comprehensible to B1 learners.

Etymology

The noun brown rot comes from the simple picture of sick fruit: a type of fungus makes the fruit turn brown and rot, with soft dark spots that spread. That's why the name means 'a disease that makes plant parts go bad' today.