gangrene

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun Death and decay of body tissue, often occurring in a limb, caused by insufficient blood supply and usually following injury or disease.
• transitive & intransitive verb To affect or become affected with gangrene.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To produce a gangrene in; mortify; hence, figuratively, to cause decay or destruction in.
• To become mortified.
• noun In pathology, a necrosis or mortification of soft tissues when the parts affected become dry, hard, and dark in color (dry gangrene or mummification), or when, remaining soft and moist, the parts fall a prey to septic organisms and undergo putrefaction (moist gangrene or sphacelus).
• noun In botany, a disease ending in putrid decay.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun (Med.) A term formerly restricted to mortification of the soft tissues which has not advanced so far as to produce complete loss of vitality; but now applied to mortification of the soft parts in any stage.
• verb To produce gangrene in; to be affected with gangrene.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun The necrosis or rotting of flesh, usually caused by lack of blood supply.
• noun figuratively A damaging or corrupting influence.
• verb transitive To produce gangrene in.
• verb intransitive To be affected with gangrene.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun necrotic tissue; a mortified or gangrenous part or mass
• noun the localized death of living cells (as from infection or the interruption of blood supply)
• verb undergo necrosis