Meaning & use
root rot
Last updated
Meaning
noununcountable
A plant disease in which the roots decay, usually because the soil stays too wet or fungi attack them.
Grammar: Used without 'a' or a plural: root rot spreads quickly; not 'a root rot' or 'root rots'.
Patterns
- root rot in something
- cause root rot
- prevent root rot
The yellowing leaves and soft stems suggest root rot rather than a lack of light.
Overwatering is the most common cause of root rot in houseplants.
Gardeners often lose whole beds to root rot after a rainy spring.
Common combinations
- suffer from root rot
- The seedlings began to suffer from root rot after the soil stayed soaked for days.
- prevent root rot
- Good drainage helps prevent root rot in potted plants.
- root rot spreads
- Once root rot spreads, the plant may be impossible to save.
- signs of root rot
- Wilting despite wet soil is one of the first signs of root rot.
Synonyms and how they differ
- damping-off
- Damping-off is a similar fungal problem that mainly kills seedlings at the stem base, while root rot affects the roots of older plants too.
Word family
Commonly confused: root rot or root rot?
root rot vs root rot
Do not confuse with 'root rot' as a verb phrase; the disease name is a noun, so you say 'the plant has root rot', not 'the plant root rots'.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'root rot' correctly?
Choose one answer.
Root rot is uncountable, so it takes no article or plural: 'has root rot' is correct. 'A root rot' and 'root rots' wrongly treat it as countable, and 'root rots' as a verb phrase is not how the disease is described.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “root rot”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.