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# worsen

«worsen» in Mova's school dictionary: **To get worse: the storm worsened during the night** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

### part of speech

verb (worsen, worsens, worsened, worsening)

### meaning for a pupil

1) To get worse: the storm worsened during the night. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/worsen/#m1)

2) To make something worse: shouting will only worsen the problem. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/worsen/#m2)

### sense in the lessons

In health and safety it tells you when to get help (if your cough worsens, see a doctor; if the weather worsens, turn back). In news and geography it describes problems like pollution or drought getting worse. In maths and graphs, results that worsen go down (or a time goes up). Phrases: worsen over time, steadily worsen, the situation worsened.

### examples

- The weather worsened, so we left the beach. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/worsen/#x1)
- If the pain worsens, go to the doctor. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/worsen/#x2)
- Scratching a bite only worsens the itch. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/worsen/#x3)
- The traffic worsened after the crash. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/worsen/#x4)
- Air pollution worsens when there is no wind. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/worsen/#x5)
- His test score worsened from 18 to 14. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/worsen/#x6)
- (formal) The situation subsequently worsened. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/worsen/#x7)

### note

Regular verb: worsened, worsening. It is a bit more formal than "get worse". The opposite is improve. In maths, a worsening score falls, but a worsening race time rises — think about what "worse" means for each quantity.

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «worsen» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/worsen/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.