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See also: Degeneration



From French dégénération, from Latin degeneratio.



degeneration ‎(usually uncountable, plural degenerations)

  1. (uncountable) The process or state of growing worse, or the state of having become worse.
    • 1913, B. H. Carrol, An Interpretation of the English Bible,
      The modern cry of "more liberty and less creed" is a degeneration from a vertebrate to a jellyfish.
  2. (uncountable) That condition of a tissue or an organ in which its vitality has become either diminished or perverted; a substitution of a lower for a higher form of structure.
    fatty degeneration of the liver
  3. (uncountable) Gradual deterioration, from natural causes, of any class of animals or plants or any particular organ or organs; hereditary degradation of type.
  4. (countable) A thing that has degenerated.
    • Sir Thomas Browne
      cockle, aracus, [] and other degenerations




Related terms[edit]