Crossword clues for degeneracy
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Degeneracy \De*gen"er*a*cy\, n. [From Degenerate, a.]
-
The act of becoming degenerate; a growing worse.
Willful degeneracy from goodness.
--Tillotson. -
The state of having become degenerate; decline in good qualities; deterioration; meanness.
Degeneracy of spirit in a state of slavery.
--Addison.To recover mankind out of their universal corruption and degeneracy.
--S. Clarke.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1660s, from degenerate + -cy.
Wiktionary
n. the state of being degenerate (in all senses)
WordNet
n. the state of being degenerate in mental or moral qualities [syn: degeneration, decadence, decadency]
moral perversion; impairment of virtue and moral principles; "the luxury and corruption among the upper classes"; "moral degeneracy followed intellectual degeneration"; "its brothels; its opium parlors; its depravity" [syn: corruption, depravity]
Wikipedia
Degeneracy may refer to:
In mathematics, a degenerate case is a limiting case in which an element of a class of objects is qualitatively different from the rest of the class and hence belongs to another, usually simpler, class. Degeneracy is the condition of being a degenerate case.
The definitions of many classes of composite or structured objects include (often implicitly) inequalities. For example, the angles and the side lengths of a triangle are supposed to be positive. The limiting cases, where one of these elements of the triangle is zero, are degenerate triangles.
Often, the degenerate cases are the exceptional cases where changes to the usual dimension or the cardinality of the object (or of some part of it) occur. For example, a triangle is an object of dimension two, and a degenerate triangle is contained in a line, and its dimension is thus one. Similarly, the solution set of a system of equations that depends on parameters generally has a fixed cardinality and dimension, but cardinality and/or dimension may be different for some exceptional values, called degenerate cases. In such a degenerate case, the solution set is said to be degenerate.
For some classes of composite objects, the degenerate cases depend on the properties that are specifically studied. In particular, the class of objects may often be defined or characterized by systems of equations. Commonly, a given class of objects may be defined by several different systems of equations, and these different systems of equations may lead to different degenerate cases, while characterizing the same non-degenerate cases. This may be the reason for which there is no general definition of degeneracy, although the concept is widely used, and defined, if needed, in each specific situation.
A degenerate case thus has special features, which makes it non-generic. However not all non-generic cases are degenerate. For example, right triangles, isosceles triangles and equilateral triangles are non-generic and non-degenerate. Frequently, degenerate cases correspond to singularities either in the object or in some configuration space. For example, a conic section is degenerate if and only if it has singular points.
Within biological systems, degeneracy occurs when structurally dissimilar components/modules/pathways can perform similar functions (i.e. are effectively interchangeable) under certain conditions, but perform distinct functions in other conditions. Degeneracy is thus a relational property that requires comparing the behaviour of two or more components. In particular, if degeneracy is present in a pair of components then there will exist conditions where the pair will appear functionally redundant but other conditions where they will appear functionally distinct.
Note that this use of the term has practically no relevance to the questionably meaningful concept of evolutionarily degenerate populations that have lost ancestral functions.
In graph theory, a k-degenerate graph is an undirected graph in which every subgraph has a vertex of degree at most k: that is, some vertex in the subgraph touches k or fewer of the subgraph's edges. The degeneracy of a graph is the smallest value of k for which it is k-degenerate. The degeneracy of a graph is a measure of how sparse it is, and is within a constant factor of other sparsity measures such as the arboricity of a graph.
Degeneracy is also known as the k-core number, width, and linkage, and is essentially the same as the coloring number or Szekeres-Wilf number (named after ). k-degenerate graphs have also been called k-inductive graphs. The degeneracy of a graph may be computed in linear time by an algorithm that repeatedly removes minimum-degree vertices. The connected components that are left after all vertices of degree less than k have been removed are called the k-cores of the graph and the degeneracy of a graph is the largest value k such that it has a k-core.
Usage examples of "degeneracy".
And, although amid the ever-growing degeneracy of mankind, this primeval word of revelation was falsified by the admixture of various errors, and overlaid and obscured by numberless and manifold fictions, inextricably confused, and disfigured almost beyond the power of recognition, still a profound inquiry will discover in heathenism many luminous vestiges of primitive Truth.
The children of such persons are degenerate also, and as the class is numerous and fertile there is here a social problem which is not primarily a problem in alcohol, but is accidentally connected therewith simply because the proneness to alcoholism is a symptom of the degeneracy.
In the long period of twelve hundred years, which elapsed between the reign of Constantine and the reformation of Luther, the worship of saints and relics corrupted the pure and perfect simplicity of the Christian model: and some symptoms of degeneracy may be observed even in the first generations which adopted and cherished this pernicious innovation.
The dimensions of the pillar, and of the stones, were often appealed to, as a proof of the superior stature and size of old women and geese in the days of other years, by those praisers of the past who held the comfortable opinion of the gradual degeneracy of mankind.
He was a slender, weazened man, nervous, irritable, high-strung, and anaemic--a typical child of the gutter, with unbeautiful twisted features, small-eyed, with face and mouth perpetually and feverishly hungry, brutish in a cat-like way, stamped to the core with degeneracy.
I have pleased myself with considering it as a chosen spot, where the principles of sturdy John Bullism were garnered up, like seed corn, to renew the national character when it had run to waste and degeneracy.
Fifty or so longliners had set sail into the unknown, and those who had managed to message back reported emptiness beyond, and horror and degeneracy within.
Catholic images were faintly and flatly delineated by monkish artists in the last degeneracy of taste and genius.
He was a slender, weazened man, nervous, irritable, high-strung, and anaemic--a typical child of the gutter, with unbeautiful twisted features, small eyes, with face and mouth perpetually and feverishly hungry, brutish in a catlike way, stamped to the core with degeneracy.
They are, certainly, too lazy to pronounce any harsh or difficult consonants, and the Italian language therefore presents a picture of sad effeminate degeneracy compared with the more vigorous Latin and even Spanish.
But if such an idea should prevent the American nation from contributing its influence to the establishment of a peaceful system in Europe, America, and Asia, such a refusal would be a decisive stop toward American democratic degeneracy.
The idea of one God, of a creative, productive, governing unity, resided in the earliest exertion of thought: and this monotheism of the primitive ages, makes every succeeding epoch, unless it be the present appear only as a stage in the progress of degeneracy and aberration Everywhere in the old faiths we find the idea of a supreme or presiding Deity.
In the majority opinion, any Mongol who becomes a Kalmuk is doomed to degeneracy and depravity, and if the Kalmuk people I saw and smelled were typical, then the majority have good reason to despise them.
Mau-dudi and Sayyid Qutb, they declared jihad against the forces of heresy and degeneracy, and he was with them.
Therefore complain I not of modern degeneracy, when, even from the open window of the small unlovely farmhouse, tenanted by the hard-handed man of bovine flavors and the flat-patterned woman of broken-down countenance, issue the same familiar sounds.