degeration

Noun

degeneration (usually uncountable, plural degenerations)

1. (countable, uncountable, usually) 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.1913, B. H. Carrol, An Interpretation of the English Bible

   Synonyms:

   decadence, decline, degradation, debasement, degeneracy, deterioration

2. (usually) 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. (usually) Gradual deterioration, from natural causes, of any class of animals or plants or any particular organ or organs; hereditary degradation of type.
4. (countable, usually) A thing that has degenerated.
   • cockle, aracus, […] and other degenerations1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC