degeneration

Plural: degenerations

Noun

• the process of declining from a higher to a lower level of effective power or vitality or essential quality
• the state of being degenerate in mental or moral qualities
• passing from a more complex to a simpler biological form
• The process or state of growing worse, or the state of having become worse.
• 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.
• Gradual deterioration, from natural causes, of any class of animals or plants or any particular organ or organs; hereditary degradation of type.
• A thing that has degenerated.

Examples

• fatty degeneration of the liver

Synonyms

decadence, decadency, degeneracy, devolution, retrogression, debasement, decline, degradation, deterioration, nerf

Antonyms

evolution

Related Words

degenerate, degenerative