Wiktionary

degenerate

English

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Etymology

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Learned borrowing from Latin dēgenerātus. By surface analysis, de- +‎ generate.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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degenerate (comparative more degenerate, superlative most degenerate)

  1. (of qualities) Having deteriorated, degraded or fallen from normal, coherent, balanced and desirable to undesirable and typically abnormal.
  2. (of a person or system) Having lost good or desirable qualities; hence also having bad character or habits, base, immoral, corrupt.
    • 1591, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 3:
      faint-hearted and degenerate king
    • 1712 (date written), [Joseph] Addison, Cato, a Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1713, →OCLC, Act I, scene i, page 2:
      But what can Cato do
      Againſt a World, a baſe degenerate World,
      That courts the Yoke, and bows the Neck to Cæſar?
    • 1726, Jonathan Swift, Verses on St. Patrick's Well:
      As you grew more degenerate and base, I sent you millions of the croaking race
    • 1918, Alexander Corkey, The Vision of Joy, or When "Billy" Sunday Came to Town:
      If my boy is not tempted to gamble at a fashionable card party he will never learn from the degenerate, blackleg gamblers in the joint.
    • 2013, Artie Lange, Crash and Burn:
      What are the odds that an alcoholic and degenerate gambler with no money management skills could survive in a city that ate addicts for lunch and dreams for dinner?
  3. Having lost functionality in general.
    • 2013 March, Harold J. Morowitz, “The Smallest Cell”, in American Scientist‎[1], volume 101, number 2, archived from the original on 4 January 2017, page 83:
      It is likely that the long evolutionary trajectory of Mycoplasma went from a reductive autotroph to oxidative heterotroph to a cell-wall–defective degenerate parasite. This evolutionary trajectory assumes the simplicity to complexity route of biogenesis, a point of view that is not universally accepted.
  4. (of an encoding or function) Having multiple domain elements correspond to one element of the range.
    The genetic code is degenerate because a single amino acid can be coded by one of several codons.
  5. (mathematics) Qualitatively different, usually simpler, than typical objects of its class.
    A degenerate circle, having radius zero, consists of a single point.
    • 1921, A. Hay, “Phase Transformation and Phase Balancing”, in Journal of the Indian Institute of Science, volume 4, page 102:
      We now apply the geometrical construction explained in the appendix to the degenerate triangle ABC.
  6. (mathematics, of an eigenvalue) Having multiple different (linearly independent) eigenvectors.
  7. (physics) Having the same quantum energy level.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Noun

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degenerate (plural degenerates)

  1. One who is degenerate, who has fallen from previous stature; an immoral or corrupt person.
    In the cult of degenerates, acts of decency, kindness and modesty could be seen as acts of apostasy.

Translations

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Verb

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degenerate (third-person singular simple present degenerates, present participle degenerating, simple past and past participle degenerated)

  1. (intransitive) To lose good or desirable qualities.
    His condition continued to degenerate even after admission to hospital.
    • 1870, Shirley Hibberd, Rustic Adornments for Homes of Taste, page 170:
      Another bird quickly learned to imitate the song of a canary that was mated with it, but as the parrakeet improved in the performance the canary degenerated, and came at last to mingle the other bird's harsh chitterings with its own proper music.
  2. (transitive) To cause to lose good or desirable qualities.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Further reading

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Italian

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Etymology 1

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Adjective

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degenerate

  1. feminine plural of degenerato

Participle

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degenerate f pl

  1. feminine plural of degenerato

Etymology 2

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Noun

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degenerate f

  1. plural of degenerata

Etymology 3

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Verb

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degenerate

  1. inflection of degenerare:
    1. second-person plural present indicative
    2. second-person plural imperative

Latin

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Pronunciation

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Verb

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dēgenerāte

  1. second-person plural present active imperative of dēgenerō

Spanish

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Verb

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degenerate

  1. second-person singular voseo imperative of degenerar combined with te
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