What is a Rotten Word™?

Question

_{This is in the spirit of the What is a Word/Phrase™ series started by JLee with a special brand of Phrase™ and Word™ puzzles.}

If a word conforms to a special rule, I call it a Rotten Word™.

Use the following examples below to find the rule.

Rotten Words™	Not Rotten Words™
ANT	BEETLE
BARF	VOMIT
CLERK	TELLER
EBBS	FLOWS
ENVY	JEALOUSY
FLAP	FLUTTER
GNAT	FLY
GREEN	BLUE
NOWHERE	SOMEWHERE
NUN	PRIEST
PURELY	MIXED
REEF	OCEAN
ROOF	CEILING
VEX	TROUBLE

And, if you want to analyze, here is a CSV version:

Rotten Words™,Not Rotten Words™
ANT,BEETLE
BARF,VOMIT
CLERK,TELLER
EBBS,FLOWS
ENVY,JEALOUSY
FLAP,FLUTTER
GNAT,FLY
GREEN,BLUE
NOWHERE,SOMEWHERE
NUN,PRIEST
PURELY,MIXED
REEF,OCEAN
ROOF,CEILING
VEX,TROUBLE

@dperry Neither font nor case matters for this one. It's a lot more fun that my previous ones, in my opinion. — Engineer Toast, Nov 20 '15 at 21:30
86% of rotten words are shorter than their non-rotten counterparts! — Michael, Nov 20 '15 at 22:58
@Michael That's because most Rotten Words are short. It's hard to find a long one. — Engineer Toast, Nov 20 '15 at 23:04

score 22 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 17 '19 at 03:52

22

Rotten Words are words that...

can be ROT13'd to produce a new word. (A is replaced with N B with O, etc.)
These produce: NAG ONES PYREX ROOF RAIL SYNC TANG TERRA ABJURER AHA CHERYL ERRS EBBS IRK.

edited Aug 17 '19 at 03:52

Herb

3,333
2
17
31

answered Nov 20 '15 at 21:36

Deusovi

146,248
16
519
609

1

Wouldn't rot13("n" orpbzr "a" naq O" orpbzr " b")? – Goose Sep 02 '18 at 16:34

What is a Rotten Word™?

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