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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.

See Examples For:

I’m kind of glad that I’m not so much of a degenerate anymore.

From Los Angeles Times Feb. 25, 2026

“Degen” is a term that alludes to degenerate gamblers and first gained popularity on Reddit to refer to investors who gravitate toward wildly risky strategies.

From MarketWatch Dec. 15, 2025

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

From Slate Nov. 18, 2025

That it no longer seems to be leaves us all morally degenerate.

From The Wall Street Journal Oct. 27, 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

By targeting the “worst” degenerates first, they fractured the opposition, and inadvertently created that “First they came for…” poem that we all now memorize in middle school.

From Slate Feb. 16, 2025

“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

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

“He had to move back,” 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.

From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller

"Perhaps they can add new brain cells to a network that is degenerating," Salta says.

From Science Daily Jul. 3, 2026

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

That level of organization and conservation of DNA suggests the Y chromosome isn’t degenerating into obsolescence, Jobling says.

From Science Magazine Aug. 23, 2023

There came a period when the intellect, instead of pursuing its rise, was, in reality, degenerating into the darkness of superstition.

From The Cathedrals of Southern France by Mansfield, M. F. (Milburg Francisco)




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