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"rot" is also used as a crossword clue. If that's what you saw, the answer is often decay (5 letters).
Definitions
become physically weaker
Word origin
Inherited from Middle English roten, rotten, from Old English rotian (“to rot, become corrupted, ulcerate, putrefy”), from Proto-West Germanic *rotēn, from Proto-Germanic *rutāną (“to rot”).
Used in a sentence
“The apple left in the cupboard all that time had started to rot.”
“Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot, / To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot.”
“Your brain will rot if you spend so much time on the computer, Tony!”
Source: Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0
Used as a crossword answer4 curated clues
01“Break down naturally”3 letters
02“Go bad, as fruit”3 letters
03“Spoil over time”3 letters
04“Decay”3 letters
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