DEGENERATION • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Degeneration

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/dɪdʒˌɛnərˈeɪʃən/ Listen

noun

Degeneration n.

The act or state of growing worse, or the state of having become worse; decline; degradation; debasement; degeneracy; deterioration. "Our degeneration and apostasy."

(Physiol.) 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; as, fatty degeneration of the liver.

(Biol.) A gradual deterioration, from natural causes, of any class of animals or plants or any particular organ or organs; hereditary degradation of type.

The thing degenerated. (R.) "Cockle, aracus,... and other degenerations."

Amyloid degeneration, Caseous degeneration, etc. See under Amyloid, Caseous, etc.

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Etymology of 'Degeneration'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Degeneration" Quotes from Famous Books

... hard at work; thanks to them, the conveniences of life are multiplied from day to day. Our physical demands increase, yet truth is still a long way off, and man still remains the most rapacious and dirty animal; everything is tending to the degeneration of the majority of mankind, and the loss forever of all fitness for life. In such conditions an artist's work has no meaning, and the more talented he is, the stranger and the more unintelligible is his position, as when one looks into it, it is evident that he is working ...

— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... any metropolis of modern Europe. The bulk of the people have ceased to receive any influence from the representatives of Christianity, yet there has been moral progress instead of deterioration. Those who speak of degeneration in London or Paris do not accurately know and estimate the state of those cities in more ...

— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe

... laws affect him in the air he breathes, the food he eats, the clothes he wears, and (in) every circumstance surrounding his habilitation. In the wholesale violation of these laws after the war, as previously stated, was laid the foundation of the degeneration of the physical and mental condition of the Negro. Licentiousness left its slimy trail of sometimes ineradicable disease upon his physical being, and neglected bronchitis, pneumonia, and pleurisy lent their ...

— A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 1 • Kelly Miller

... so-called magical literature, but such foul deeds are no more real Magic than are the horrors of religious fanaticism the outcome of true Mohammedanism or Christianity. This is the abuse, the superstition, the degeneration of all that is good and true, rendered all the more vile because it pertains to denser planes of matter than even the physical. It is a strange thing that the highest should pair with the lowest where man is concerned, but it ever ...

— Simon Magus • George Robert Stow Mead

... development of a style is reached a change is sure to come. It may be a degeneration, or it may be the introduction of a new style through some great artistic impulse either native or introduced by contact with an outside influence. Fortunately, the Gothic passed through no pallid process of ...

— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee

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