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Use degenerate in a sentence

Definition of degenerate:

  • (noun) a person whose behavior deviates from what is acceptable especially in sexual behavior
  • (verb) grow worse
  • (adjective) unrestrained by convention or morality

Sentence Examples:

The character of the Royal Christmases degenerated during the reign of Rufus, whose licentiousness fouled the festivities.

There he degenerated into a neglected domestic drudge, apparently quite without education, a state of things he inwardly resented.

The degenerate Romans of the later times were unable to stand against the attacks of the more vigorous Germans.

His apparent imperiousness and arrogance conceal a kindness of heart which I have often seen degenerate into positive weakness.

What was at first mischievous abandon and merry jest, gradually degenerates into loquaciousness, coarseness and querulous brawls.

Bach, had degenerated into all the triviality and insipidity which a slavish adherence to form could produce.

That egoism is a salient feature in the character of the degenerate has been unanimously confirmed by all observers.

The offspring of this class are predestined to be degenerates, and one of the two operations is imperatively indicated.

Charming eloquence he had; but it degenerated into egotistical garrulity, rendered tempting by the gilding of his genius.

He is many times flat, and insipid; his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling into bombast.

He is many times flat and insipid; his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling into bombast.

Although this style of furniture degenerated into commonplace designs with affectedly hard outlines, it had a considerable vogue.

Having as guardians a popular, vacillating tradition, and selfish sacristans, the Pagan religion could but degenerate in worship.

A playful seasonable exchange of snowballs degenerated into a combat with the rougher element which frequented the "flags."

Experience has taught even these primitive men that the offspring of consanguineous marriages were often deficient and degenerate.

Upon the withdrawal of the calm judgment and imaginative grip of Pericles, the Athenian political system degenerated rapidly.

In tropical countries where the dog becomes dumb, or degenerates into a mere growler, his trumpet never rusts.

Toward the end of the second period, the inflammatory exudate in the air cells has begun to degenerate.

The latter degenerate and die, the former fertilize the ova, and the fertilized ova develop only into females.

Severity constantly indulged, was degenerating into moroseness; and feelings continually controlled, giving place to coldness and distrust.

He had stopped crying, but his teeth chattered, and his sobs had degenerated into monotonous, soul-shattering hiccoughs.

The degenerate descendants carried the day, however, the most bigoted of their opposers becoming disabled by rheumatism.

Unless this feeling is checked in time it degenerates into "panic," when prices fall to a ruinously low figure.

If left unguided, this tendency shortly degenerates in many children into a desire to pick every flower in sight.

Paul Suburb, they are usually women of great strength and endurance, but soon degenerate into mere passive, passionless tools.

We don't mean this, but we are so anxious to please and be pleased, that our enthusiasm is degenerating into drivel.

The weak or sensual or casuistic degenerated in the first decade: the strong maintained their idealism to the last.

The presence of cystic formations raises the possibility of a large quantity of colloid substance, either healthy or degenerate.

In the didactic part the philosophy degenerates into the prescription of a romantic nostrum for all human ills.

He skipped in advance like some degenerate twentieth century faun, playing on his pipes the unmitigated melodies of George Cohan.

How has the impulse to freedom given by Luther degenerated into licentiousness, run out in infidelity and unbelief!

The anthropologist has to declare his opponent inferior and degenerate, the psychiatrist must diagnose him as mentally deranged.

For that very reason these nations could, like the child, degenerate from natural simplicity to polished, varnished witticisms.

The Bedouin always had their virtues, but the wild liberty of the desert easily degenerated into unbridled license.

If they are treated in a kind, though dignified, manner, unless very degenerate, they will usually respond satisfactorily.

Conversation degenerated into futile bar gossip between Gerard and himself, which they protracted sleepily till a late hour.

Yet "he is many times flat, insipid; his comic wit degenerating into clinches, his serious swelling into bombast".

Do not let your pleasantries degenerate into those of buffoons, who raise laughter by extravagant representations and indecent action.

Since that time Yiddish journalism has sadly degenerated, through imitation of the vicious "yellow journals" of the American press.

Contentedness has its virtues, but it may degenerate into inertia and the death of all desire for better life.

With the advance of years Napoleon's earlier religious impressions, always vague, had degenerated into a mild and tolerant deism.

It is no wonder that this uncanny land has made its residents degenerate into plotters, revolutionists, murderers, and thieves.

The imitation of Shakespeare could only have produced gross unreality, which must have degenerated still further into mere inanity.

And degenerated into a wanton licentiousness of thought, and a rage for speculation and skepticism on every subject whatever.

Their subjects were proud of it as marking them out to be free men in contradistinction to the degenerate Roman population.

While he advocated unbounded liberty, he knew well enough that it would degenerate into license unless the people were well-informed.

You degenerate into a bitter, waspish, and fault-finding shrew; or you develop into a patient, tolerant, and infinitely understanding woman.

The splendid promise of the Renaissance had degenerated into the mannerism and extravagance of Bernini and his contemporaries.

With it all a sort of serene steadiness and refinement that never allowed pleasures to degenerate into a maddening whirl.

If the half of what they say of him is true, he is a spineless degenerate and hardly worth saving.

How glad I am that our Japanese art, at least in the olden time, never degenerated into a mechanical art!

"He who has his sword girded on by a priest," said they, "is not knight, but a degenerate burgess."

It is rather the degenerated man with whom predisposition has found the opportunity to reveal and to develop itself.

Commencing with decency enough, they soon degenerated into obscenity, the women contorting their bodies into the most libidinous postures.

The thing touches me too closely, it vexes me too deeply to think that the Russian character should be degenerating.

Though how, in these degenerate days, can one man horsewhip another because he makes use of that mild word "very"?

The incorrigible recidivists among the sexual perverts are, I am convinced, either hereditary or strongly predisposed, or degenerated by alcoholism.

The freedom and independence of Elizabethan days had degenerated by the time of Charles I into a fairly definite type.

From this we may infer that the original rites of which these are the degenerate successors were solemnized at midsummer.

Its general appearance was not ineffective, but a critic described its style as degenerate Italian relieved in the French taste.

The most depraved of degenerates sometimes have been men of lofty genius and in their fall they grovelled in filth.

On a degenerate descendant of the fighting Anglo-Saxon breed this barbarous exhibition of brute locked with brute began to pall.

The New Testament attacks pagans, particularly Roman paganism, for unnatural sexual practices, lusts, and corrupt and degenerate mores.

When the scurf, through neglect, degenerates into a sore, treat after the manner subsequently advised for cracked heels.

Apart from filial piety, Confucianism was, in practice, mainly a code of civilized behavior, degenerating at times into an etiquette book.

It is little to be doubted that several of his forefathers in that long series have degenerated into honor and virtue.

Such a religion may degenerate into mere slaughter and rapine; but it has the making in it of the noblest men.

Or discuss the weather, gave him that high sense of merit which degenerates into sheer fatuity when talent wanes.

Many who stayed lost all they had in a few years, and degenerated into petty politicians or small storekeepers.

To say that they are lukewarm is only to fairly indicate a state of feeling which is rapidly degenerating into frigidity.

At the breakfast or dinner there was none of that indecorous hurry in eating and drinking which marks our degenerate days.

The gauge of reformative effort regulated to the degenerate reactions of instinctive social wolves, at the expense of their sore needs!

His economy degenerated into niggardliness; his politic scheming to fill his treasury developed into a griping greed for gold.

The consequence was, that with all theological believers, and with monotheists especially, devotion always tended to degenerate into quietism.

The result is that he degenerates into an unemployable and swells the volume of the human driftwood of our social order.

Journalism of which the mainspring is the gaining of pleasure may easily degenerate into something akin to the comic actor's function.

The vigor, heartiness, and sincerity of this political hatred put to shame the more tepid convictions of our degenerate days.

Their chivalrous courage, that sublime inheritance from ancestors who had never known the paleface foe, degenerated into a savage ferocity.

With degenerate Epicureans, whose philosophy permitted them "To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty," he had little in common.

"How vilely does this cynic rhyme," he takes from Shakespeare; and Addison speaks of a man degenerating into a cynic.

The wordy pietism of one school, the mimetic rites of another, the romping heroics of the third, are degenerate forms.

At the time of her husband's death she was at the point where graceful inactivity so often degenerates into slovenliness.

In the later history of these nations, their idolatry degenerated in character, and became a system of most debasing tendency.

Possibly the customary figures were for a time painted instead of engraved; but this degenerated habit was also soon relinquished.

Many prostitutes are frequently arrested for robbery, but as a rule escape, as the degenerate complainant seldom appears against them.

And yet these very qualities, when abused, often degenerated into idleness, pride, ignorance, bigotry, and even the grossest sensuality.

It has borne, and can bear, principles or doctrines, which in other systems of religion quickly degenerate into fanaticism or infidelity.

Any Norman gallant with a well-trimmed beard would put me to the rout as wives are won in these degenerate days!

We were a superior race in "that degenerate France;" but we are about to become little boys again amongst the noble German people.

Without that, the physician may degenerate into an atheist or a materialist, whose hopes terminate at the edge of the grave.

Half a dozen squatters from a degenerate colony in a brush-hidden hollow, planters of potatoes, suspected thieves, came in noisily drunk.

If a man permits largeness of heart to degenerate into softness of head, he inevitably becomes a nuisance in any relation of life.

Here we find a disorganized condition of society, and see how many forces work blindly in a wasteful and degenerate manner.

It had been fifty years since the most degenerate of these poor unfortunates had been allowed to vociferate their wild discords.

And as to the common herd of priests, they account it a crime to degenerate from the sanctity of their prelates.

Degenerate readers of our own day have actually been provided with an abridgment of Clarissa, itself as long as an ordinary novel.

Idealization would degenerate into indistinctness, and, by the dulling of our memory, we should dream a world daily more poor and vague.

If so, the present race of scorpions must have degenerated greatly in size, or else the rats are of a Lilliputian family.

At the corner of the churchyard stands an old deserted cottage which, after many vicissitudes, has fallen upon degenerate days.

If, for instance, organisms which have hitherto lived independently accustom themselves to a parasitical life, they thereby degenerate or retrograde.