Deborah Green, a certified arborist at Bartlett Tree Experts in Southampton, said internal decay in a tree can occur undetected for years.

The Soviet Union was forced to expose its internal decay.

Noted for achievements in state building, architecture, and the sciences, the Safavid state crumbled due to internal decay and external pressures from the Russians and Afghans.

It's collapse is the result of internal decay.

In the 13th and 14th centuries, the monastery declined, partly from the oppression of its secular administrators, but more from internal decay.

We could be seeing a period of foreign movement at a time of internal decay".

But his business-maintaining the status quo of a realm threatened by internal decay and outside aggression-was a strenuous one.

His breath reeked of internal decay.

The process of internal decay and foreign encroachment was gradual rather than precipitous and was hardly evident in the fifteenth century when the Khmer were still powerful.

Its fall was unique in that it was not brought about by internal decay, but by the growing power of the barbarian nations and the Hyrkanians.