Gets in a bad state (4)
I believe the answer is:
rots
'gets' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both related to bodily activities as well as being verbs in their -s form.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'a bad state' is the wordplay.
'a bad' becomes 'rot' (I've seen this before).
'state' becomes 's' (this might be a standard abbreviation of which I'm unaware).
'rot'+'s'='ROTS'
'in' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for rots that I've seen before include "Decays" , "Decomposes" .)