DEGENERATION • E-FREE TRANSLATION.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

... ignorant charlatans is unworthy of attention or respect— where there's a dim light and a dark cabinet, and a parcel of sentimental gulls gathered together, with their faith and their shudders and their tears all ready, and one and the same fatty degeneration of protoplasm and humbug comes out and materializes himself into anybody you want, grandmother, grandchild, brother-in-law, Witch of Endor, John Milton, Siamese twins, Peter the Great, and all such frantic ...

— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... social heritage much more than the flesh-and-blood natural inheritance, that we find no difficulty in the idea that evolution is going on in mankind. We know the contrast between modern man and primitive man, and we are convinced that in the past, at least, progress has been a reality. That degeneration may set in is an awful possibility—involution rather than evolution—but even if going back became for a time the rule, we cannot give up the hope that the race would recover itself and begin afresh to go forward. For although there have been retrogressions in the history of life, continued ...

— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson

... of a medusa ever having arisen suddenly and de novo from a polyp-bud, if only because both forms are adapted in their structure as a whole, and in every detail to the conditions of their life. A sudden origin, in a natural way, of numerous adaptations is inconceivable. Even the degeneration of a medusoid from a free-swimming animal to a mere brood-sac (gonophore) is not sudden and saltatory, but occurs by imperceptible modifications throughout hundreds of years, as we can learn from the numerous stages ...

— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... one or the other of my boys whom they have met when visiting at the shore. Nearly all of them are sick with leprosy or elephantiasis or tuberculosis, and after the long rainy period they all have colds and coughs and suffer from rheumatism; altogether they present a sad picture of degeneration and misery, and there are few healthy men to ...

— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... murders if you are fond of theology; or Tupper or a dictionary or T. S. Arthur if you are fond of poetry; or he hands you a volume of distressing jokes or a copy of the American Miscellany if you particularly dislike that sort of literary fatty degeneration of the heart—just for the world like a pleasant spoken well-meaning gentleman in any, bookstore. But here I am running on as if business men had nothing to do but listen to women talk. You must pardon me, for I was not thinking.—And you must let me thank you again for helping ...

— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

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