The Collaborative International Dictionary
Degenerate \De*gen"er*ate\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Degenerated; p. pr. & vb. n. Degenerating.]
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To be or grow worse than one's kind, or than one was originally; hence, to be inferior; to grow poorer, meaner, or more vicious; to decline in good qualities; to deteriorate.
When wit transgresseth decency, it degenerates into insolence and impiety.
--Tillotson. (Biol.) To fall off from the normal quality or the healthy structure of its kind; to become of a lower type.
Wiktionary
vb. (present participle of degenerate English)
Usage examples of "degenerating".
It had descended from its several degenerating orbits to spiral gently down onto the landing pad inside Interstellar City.
In layman's terms, Singularity theory just shows us how to decompose two widely separated subspace areas into a sequence of compacted dimensionalities sharing one non degenerating element.
It seemed to her his effort was degenerating into sacrilege, into defiance of an obvious decree of the Almighty.
Their minds had been stimulated by the Sunday rest from the dreary and degenerating drudgery of "honest toil.
Dreary tasks, all of them--tasks devoid of interest, of personal sense of usefulness, tasks simply to keep degrading soul in degenerating body, tasks performed in filthy factories, in foul-smelling workrooms and shops, in unhealthful surroundings.
For in such a solitude as I desired, I could at least enjoy my own thoughts, and reflect with delight on the virtues of those inimitable HOUYHNHNMS, without an opportunity of degenerating into the vices and corruptions of my own species.
She dug her fingernails into her palms, hoping the pain would stop her degenerating into a maudlin state.
She did not like to think of it degenerating into a placid world of farmers and merchants.
It is much in these times (and we have made an awfully degenerating business of it since the days of his Royal Highness the Prince Regent--my patron, if I may presume to say so) to experience that deportment is not wholly trodden under foot by mechanics.
It's like the one ground-rule boundary that keeps Eschaton from degenerating into chaos.
Hal finds himself riveted at something about the degenerating game that seems so terribly abstract and fraught with implications and consequences that even thinking about how to articulate it seems so complexly stressful that being almost incapacitated with absorption is almost the only way out of the complex stress.