activate vs decay

activate

verb
  • To organize or create a military unit or station. 

  • To bring a player back after an injury. 

  • To put a device, mechanism (alarm etc.) or system into action or motion; to trigger, to actuate, to set off, to enable. 

  • To render a substance radioactive. 

  • To hasten a chemical reaction, especially by heating. 

  • To render more reactive; excite. 

  • To remove the limitations of demoware by providing a license; to unlock. 

  • To render a molecule reactive, active, or effective in performing its function. 

  • To encourage development or induce increased activity; to stimulate. 

  • To aerate in order to aid decomposition of organic matter. 

decay

verb
  • To undergo bit rot, that is, gradual degradation. 

  • To deteriorate, to get worse, to lose strength or health, to decline in quality. 

  • To undergo optical decay, that is, to relax to a less excited state, usually by emitting a photon or phonon. 

  • Loss of airspeed due to drag. 

  • To undergo software rot, that is, to fail to be updated in a changing environment, so as to eventually become legacy or obsolete. 

  • To change by undergoing fission, by emitting radiation, or by capturing or losing one or more electrons; to undergo radioactive decay. 

  • To cause to rot or deteriorate. 

  • Of an array: to lose its type and dimensions and be reduced to a pointer, for example when passed to a function. 

  • To rot, to go bad. 

  • To undergo prolonged reduction in altitude (above the orbited body). 

noun
  • The process or result of being gradually decomposed. 

  • A deterioration of condition; loss of status or fortune. 

  • The situation, in programming languages such as C, where an array loses its type and dimensions and is reduced to a pointer, for example by passing it to a function. 

How often have the words activate and decay occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )