Crossword clues for degenerate
degenerate
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
degenerate \de*gen"er*ate\, n.
a person who has declined from a high standard, especially a sexual deviate; -- usually used disparagingly or opprobriously of persons whose sexual behavior does not conform to the norms of accepted morals.
a person or thing that has fallen from a higher to a lower state, or reverted to an earlier type or stage of development or culture.
--RHUD
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
late 15c., from Latin degeneratus, past participle of degenerare "to be inferior to one's ancestors, to become unlike one's race or kind, fall from ancestral quality," used of physical as well as moral qualities, from phrase de genere, from de + genus (genitive generis) "birth, descent" (see genus). The noun is from 1550s.
1540s, from Latin degeneratus, past participle of degenerare "fall from ancestral quality" (see degenerate (adj.)). Figurative sense of "to fall off, decline" was in Latin. Related: Degenerated; degenerating.
Wiktionary
(of qualities) Having deteriorated, degraded or fallen from normal, coherent, balanced and desire to undesirable and typically abnormal. n. One is degenerate, who has fallen from previous stature. v
1 (context intransitive English) To lose good or desirable quality. 2 (context transitive English) To cause to lose good or desirable quality.
WordNet
adj. unrestrained by convention or morality; "Congreve draws a debauched aristocratic society"; "deplorably dissipated and degraded"; "riotous living"; "fast women" [syn: debauched, degraded, dissipated, dissolute, libertine, profligate, riotous, fast]
n. a person whose behavior deviates from what is acceptable especially in sexual behavior [syn: pervert, deviant, deviate]
v. grow worse; "Her condition deteriorated"; "Conditions in the slums degenerated"; "The discussion devolved into a shouting match" [syn: devolve, deteriorate, drop] [ant: recuperate]
Wikipedia
Degenerate is the third studio album by British death metal band Trigger the Bloodshed, released on 24 May 2010. It is the band's first album to feature Dan Wilding on drums; it was produced by Trigger the Bloodshed with Mark Daghorn, mixed and mastered by Jacob Hansen.
Usage examples of "degenerate".
Nil admirari is very well for a North American Indian and his degenerate successor, who has grown too grand to admire anything but himself, and takes a cynical pride in his stolid indifference to everything worth reverencing or honoring.
They were feeling loose and adrift, growing slowly mad, their minds degenerating.
But these advantages only tend to aggravate the reproach and shame of a degenerate people.
The Agnates are prepared to do something about that, even if our War Leader has had his brain softened by these degenerates from the Confederation.
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.
After a while his organs had begun to degenerate, depleted calcium levels had reduced his bones to brittle porcelain sticks, muscles had atrophied, and fluid bloated his tissues, impairing his lungs, degrading his lymphatic system.
An axon which has degenerated through injury or disease can sometimes be regenerated, provided its neurilemma has remained intact.
I feel more fully its antediluvian antiquity, its centuries of mummification, which will soon degenerate into hopeless and grotesque buffoonery, as it comes into contact with Western novelties.
Yossarian argued in a vain effort to cheer up the glum, barrel-chested Indian, whose well-knit sorrel-red face had degenerated rapidly into a dilapidated, calcareous gray.
I could see that something similar was happening to my friends and our conversation about happiness and perils of refugee life degenerated into humming silly songs with Chi and not really paying much attention to what was being said.
Edgar thought her degenerating into the character of a coquette, and Camilla, in his intended tour, anticipated a period to all their intercourse.
Chinese language is clearly related to the Chaldean, and that both the Chinese characters and the cuneiform alphabet are degenerate descendants of an original hieroglyphical alphabet.
Well, the degenerate descendants of both Hruun and dactyloid colonists, whose cultures are otherwise utterly different and very hostile to each other, have a common answer to that: the plague star.
Carthage is now degenerated into the feeble and disorderly states of Tripoli and Tunis.
His cruelty, which at first obeyed the dictates of others, degenerated into habit, and at length became the ruling passion of his soul.