worsen

1. (transitive) To make worse; to impair.Examples: "Near-synonyms: aggravate, exacerbate; degrade, deteriorate; see also Thesaurus:aggravate"; "Global warming has worsened the weather."; "As for further retaliation: adding such fuel to the fire, as it were, will only worsen the already unpleasant state of affairs."Antonyms: ameliorate, improve, meliorate, mitigatetransitive

2. (intransitive) To become worse; to get worse.Examples: "The weather has worsened."; "During the day conditions worsened quickly—for example, a 2-6-0 on the Uckfield line suddenly encountered flood water high enough to enter its ashpan and extinguish its fire—until lock gates up-river at Barcombe gave way and a tidal wave rolled down the valley meeting head-on a spring tide rolling up from the coast."; "TPE's cancellation score worsened from 7.2% to 23.8% when adjusted to include pre-cancellations (P*-coded) owing to a shortage of train crew."Synonyms: decline, deteriorate, ;, go downhill, go south, ;Antonyms: improveintransitive

3. (transitive, obsolete) To get the better of; to worst.Synonyms: better#Verb, defeat#Verb, overpowerobsoletetransitive