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degenerate

[dih-jen-uh-reyt, dih-jen-er-it] / dɪˈdʒɛn əˌreɪt, dɪˈdʒɛn ər ɪt /




Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

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“Disneyland is tiny compared with the U.S. capital markets, and that goes into the degenerate economy.”

From MarketWatch Jul. 21, 2026

The exposed animals developed movement problems and lost dopamine-producing neurons, the same type of brain cells that degenerate in Parkinson's disease.

From Science Daily Jun. 28, 2026

You need to be a true degenerate for Las Vegas to break your heart.

From Slate Nov. 18, 2025

His screen persona has often been the sleaziest of weasels, the connoisseur’s moral degenerate.

From The Wall Street Journal Oct. 23, 2025

“I see. Now I am being compared to a degenerate old female fraud. Worse, I am losing in the comparison. My own mother daring to malign me so.”

From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole

As the valve tissue degenerates, the thin flaps that should meet neatly can thicken, stretch, or lose their normal shape.

From Science Daily Jul. 12, 2026

“When my dad’s wife died a couple of years back, it was those rave degenerates who were there for me,” she says.

From BBC Oct. 16, 2024

One commentor suggested we were all members of the illuminati, or the Freemasons, who gathered with other well-heeled or well-connected degenerates to prove to ourselves that we were above the common herd.

From Slate May 27, 2023

Over the course of the film, he gradually degenerates into a disgusting creature nicknamed "Brundlefly."

From Salon Jan. 30, 2023

“If our search degenerates to that level I’ll be sure to call on you,” I said without looking in his direction.

From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss

By 2024, my hobby was starting to feel like work, and it was only a matter of time before the sport degenerated enough to make it official.

From Slate Jun. 14, 2026

Wingtech representatives responded that the Dutch intervention was "incomprehensible" and meant the row "degenerated needlessly".

From Barron's Feb. 11, 2026

In contrast, workers are wingless females with smaller body size and degenerated reproductive tracts, usually without a sperm storage organ.

From Science Daily Nov. 22, 2024

Hilary prompted the first-ever tropical storm watches and warnings in California, but officials now say it had degenerated into a post-tropical low when it hit.

From Los Angeles Times Feb. 24, 2024

But before the after-action accounts of the duel degenerated into a duel of its own, the only two eyewitnesses, Pendleton and Van Ness, published a “Joint Statement.”

From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis

Not to get too philosophical, but everything alive is degenerating.

From The Wall Street Journal Apr. 13, 2026

“All of this has been degenerating for a long time,” Melgar said.

From Los Angeles Times Jul. 18, 2025

They quickly discovered a waste-internalizing glial canal system that undergoes structural abnormalities in degenerating spider brains, which leads to uncontrolled depletion and death of brain cells.

From Science Daily Dec. 3, 2024

“The idea that the Y is still degenerating and destined to disappear is really scotched by this.”

From Science Magazine Aug. 23, 2023

Whatever may be the cause, it is evident that we as a people are degenerating into a nation of speculators.

From Nature and Culture by Harvey Rice




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