degeneration

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   The process or state of growing worse, or the state of having become worse.

   • The modern cry of "more liberty and less creed" is a degeneration from a vertebrate to a jellyfish.
   • Hence, regional soil degenerations and podsolization was probably an important factor contributing to the retrogressive change in the forest composition at the end of the mesocratic phase..
   • Emmanuel Macron sounded like a man in grief. Not angry, not defiant, just a little triste. Europe, he lamented, was suffering a “degeneration of democracy”.
2. 2

   That condition of a tissue or an organ in which its vitality has become either diminished…

   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. 3

   Gradual deterioration, from natural causes, of any class of animals or plants or any…

   Gradual deterioration, from natural causes, of any class of animals or plants or any particular organ or organs; hereditary degradation of type.

4. ›+ 1 more definitionshow fewer

   1. 4

      A thing that has degenerated.

      • cockle, aracus, […] and other degenerations

The neighborhood

• synonymnerf
• neighbordegenerate
• neighbordegenerative