Not subject to decay or rot; able to last indefinitely without breaking down or deteriorating.
From decay (from Old French decair, meaning to fall away) plus the suffix -less (Old English -leas, meaning without). The compound emerged in modern English to describe things resistant to decomposition.
This word reveals how we think about permanence—ancient Romans were obsessed with building things 'decayless,' which is why their concrete still stands after 2,000 years, but modern plastic, which we thought was decayless, is now our biggest environmental problem.
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