Sentence Examples:
Antiquarian history degenerates from the moment that it no longer gives a soul and inspiration to the fresh life of the present.
The most enlightened of the inhabitants of these degenerate and wretchedly governed states welcomed the French with the utmost enthusiasm.
An instrument of defense for those who were within the guild easily degenerated into one of tyranny for those who were without.
Sweetness of disposition, carried to extremes, may degenerate into positive mental feebleness; to my mind this is the case with Father Daniel.
Naturally, every one ought to be proud of his calling, but this pride ought not to degenerate into a perfectly fanatical arrogance.
Thus, an institution intended to help and protect the people soon degenerated into a new and terrible instrument of vexation and oppression.
If the highest cerebral centers of the degenerate stop in their development at a very low stage, they become imbeciles or idiots.
Suffice it that the evidence thickens and rolls heavily upon us, to show that the churches generally are becoming sadly degenerate.
However, by that time Robin himself had degenerated from the fine character exhibited in the earlier ballads given in this volume.
He there sings the praises of books, and voices their lament over their ill-treatment by degenerate clerks and by the unlearned.
Moreover, in every order of insects we find individual genera, or species, in which the wings have more or less degenerated or disappeared.
By the increasing use of this kind of alliteration it ultimately degenerated so much that the real nature of it was completely forgotten.
I have removed a few tumors, originally of this benign species, but which had apparently degenerated and assumed a malignant action.
Were it not for pain, we would allow our teeth to decay, our eyesight to be impaired, and various other organs to degenerate.
Endowed with talents, of a high and haughty disposition, his firmness degenerated into severity, and his valor into vehemence of temper.
In the early virtuous period of the Roman state, divorce was unusual, but in later and more degenerate times, it became very common.
Those who built this edifice and dug that moat, little knew how useful their arrangements would be in these degenerate days.
We infer from his writings that his age was degenerate and corrupt, but, as we have already said, his reproofs were gentle.
Even in 1824 it was said to be degenerating, and gentlemen who had previously been the chief breeders gradually deserted the fancy.
She would no longer weep, nor shed a single tear for the false, intriguing traitor, the degenerate scion of a degenerate race.
The use of figured draperies demands a good sense of proportion and of the eternal fitness of things, else it easily degenerates into abuse.
The house of David is no more; no more our sacred seed shall lurk and linger, like a blighted thing, in this degenerate earth.
Seeing slavery first-hand, she abhorred it more than ever and observed with dismay its degenerating influence on master as well as slave.
The eminent inhabitants have indeed been so numerous that it is difficult to prevent any account of them from degenerating into a mere catalog.
It is thus by this quality they supersede older and degenerate ones; not because they are truer, but because they are purer.
It was not too fine, yet had none of the looseness associated with the coarse, hurried work of later and degenerate times.
It is a contemptible indictment enough; yet among all this degenerate life, we come upon something more real as we turn to the artists.
What the founder had intended as an encouragement for industry was made by his degenerate disciples an excuse for idleness. Examinations.
On the other hand, these discussions sometimes degenerated into idle debate, and displayed some of the most odious feelings of human nature.
"I am only thankful that we were able to check such sinful extravagance," he returned calmly; "I believe generosity can degenerate into positive vice."
Being strong and able, he acquires a confidence in himself which easily degenerates into pride, and saves him from smallness of character.
Sometimes crime seems to be the method by which the degenerating organism seeks to escape from an insane taint in the parents.
Some regarded this as a hardship, but to this degenerate son of Adam 'twas always a roaring farce and as good as a circus!
Degenerated, like their chiefs, they no longer resembled their warlike ancestors, who would weep at not having been present at a battle.
It is to be wished by all good men with one assent that, provoked with so great clemency, these degenerates reform themselves!
The degenerate race of the English, which used to serve, inverting the order of things, ruled over the king and his children.
For of course the children die; and the women produce deformed and idiot and degenerate offspring, to fill our asylums and prisons.
Suddenly there burst through the crowd an apparition before which he quailed; his jaw dropped, and his howl degenerated into a groan.
The inhabitants mustered about eighty or ninety, mostly Indians of that degenerate class frequently to be met with in small trading outposts.
At a period somewhat later, these boisterous pastimes began to degenerate; and the Welsh squire became more polished, but not, perhaps, more happy.
This subsidiary work, which in these degenerate days is done by janitors, is mentioned here as showing the simplicity of a bygone period.
Capitalism itself has degenerated; the typical millionaire is no longer the captain of industry, but the international banker and company promoter.
The following defects constitute their victims members of that great class of degenerates who are unfit to procreate healthy normal offspring.
Such a scheme, if practicable at all, would instantly degenerate into a military despotism; but it will be found in every light impracticable.
When, then, I saw these people flocking together on their jetty to meet us, I at once recognized them as mongrel and degenerated.
It is late, lacks compactness, is very liable to degenerate, decays soon after being harvested, and must be considered more curious than useful.
In prose especially, his sentiment often degenerates into sentimentality, and he continually approaches, and sometimes oversteps, the verge of the trivial.
The Toadstool was certainly apt to carry the virtue of frankness beyond all bounds, and to allow it to degenerate into a vice.
Were a constant renewal of protoplasm to take place, the degenerated fat might be displaced into the circulation or retained within the cell.
The largest size is found only in sheltered canyons, while on high mountains and in exposed situations the tree degenerates to a shrub.
And happy, happy would it be for the fair heritage bequeathed by them, were not the present generation degenerate sons of noble sires.
The four sentries advanced with a hesitation which threatened to degenerate into terror at the slightest movement on the part of the smuggler.
At this juncture Wilson lost his grip on all self-possession, and degenerated into the sullen anger of sharp and unexpected disappointment.
This peculiarity establishes a bond which unites the highest of the degenerate to the lowest, the insane genius to the feeble mental cripple.
A structure degenerating through disuse may become removed from its typical relations with other structures and may acquire altogether new ones.
As vision returned, he could see a huge, scarred man with an embryonic degenerate face, standing on the bottom step of the ladder.
Spaniards, for the most part, pitted against Spaniards, they suffered the campaigns to degenerate into a guerilla warfare of pillage and reprisals.
By their Lowland neighbors they would not willingly be taught; for they have long considered them as a mean and degenerate race.
On the other hand, many writers regard them as degenerate offshoots of negro-like races of larger stature and more complicated mental development.
They emulate each other; but, as some will probably excel at one game, and some at another, this emulation will not degenerate into envy.
It seemed to him that a plausible originality might degenerate into mere idiosyncrasy, and that universality of appeal should be a musician's highest goal.
Do we not find it hard enough to prevent the most sacred festivals from reversing the supposed process, and degenerating into revels?
Gladstone's enthusiasm does not degenerate into vehemence, nor does he descend from the high moral plane from which he views the world.
The struggle had degenerated into an inhuman aim for those vital parts which would leave the victim blind or maimed for life.
None of the conditions established by the French psychologists are realized by the Latin American democracies, and their populations are therefore degenerate.
The hero, a man of society, comes to join the free life of a gypsy tribe because he despises the degenerating effect of civilization.
And she smiled a little mischievously, as though she knew by instinct that her companion's sympathy would at once degenerate into suspicion!
Of course medicine has degenerated, splitting up into all sorts of specialties, but there are a few people who don't want to be humbugged.
Sacred enthusiasms, solemn and awful trusts for noble purposes, may, before we know it, degenerate into mere sordid implements of personal ambition.
She wondered whether the amateurs who indulged in sentimental eugenics had ever spent a night sitting on a seat next to a degenerate sot.
If we are to keep it from thus degenerating we need to grasp above all the difference between the eccentric and the concentric imagination.
In this latter festivity the strangeness of the scene had been too exciting, and the revel had almost degenerated into an orgy.
Certain of these works of art were considered by the Germans as degenerate, and their admittance into National Socialist territory was forbidden.
There is this precaution, however, that you must take; you must not let your narrative degenerate into a mere analysis and enumeration of qualities.
Would his four years at a great American university make of him a better man, or would he degenerate into a snob and a drone?
Bursting into a simultaneous laugh, which degenerated into a loud yawn, they sprang up, launched and reloaded their canoe, and resumed their journey.
The land forces degenerated into a wretchedly organized army of less than three hundred thousand men, drafted from the lowest classes.
And still do you or does any other sane person fancy that human beings are degenerating every generation, that artistic genius is decadent?
I have sought them too, and along gravelly ridges or some old ditch yet found a few degenerate descendants of the old-time host.
Politics has degenerated to a dirty business and political trickery and bribery secure victory where honor, integrity and principle suffer defeat.
There are no more trees, and the large shrubs which for a time take their place degenerate into thorny bushes, and then disappear.
And even of these the last (division) is obscure, and scarce endures a fixed contemplation without passing into an unripe or degenerated humanity.
I see many instances of what might be called degenerates, misshapen heads, ill-shaped and deformed bodies, signs of a race too much inbred.
Crimes more aimless and more brutal than those committed by this infinitely degenerate scion of the royal house it is impossible to conceive.
I will prove to her that there is some chivalry still left in this degenerate world, under the modern guise of disinterested friendship.
The sluggish and turbid stream has little to enliven that dreary and degenerate land through which it must still conduct us.
Poverty, always sufficiently disadvantageous in a degenerate age, where attention and courtship are doled forth with scales of gold, is tremendous to him.
It painted a standard of morals, which even the licentious inhabitants of a luxurious capital could appreciate, though they had degenerated from it.
The mystical philosophy seems to me safe enough in the hands of a poet: with others it may degenerate into dank and dusty materialism.
Like the garden of the Rose which satisfied the middle age before it, the Arcadian ideal of the renaissance degenerated, as every ideal must.
Have your sons degenerated to such a degree as to confound my pure religion, root of the most perfect creeds, with Polytheism and Idolatry?
In Latin countries, the three days before Ash Wednesday are given up to boisterous outdoor merriment, which frequently degenerates into coarse and licentious revelry.
The degenerated tissue separates slowly and gradually, and in untreated cases may be visible for weeks in the floor of the ulcer.
Spaniards, for the most part, pitted against Spaniards, they suffered the campaigns to degenerate into a guerrilla warfare of pillage and reprisals.
There is a decided dash of fun running through the story, and plenty of good, healthy romance, which never degenerates into sentimentality.
It bore the name of Explorers' Club; but, as is so often the case with clubs that monopolize a pretentious name, the membership degenerated.
Power, unless kept in leash by thongs and bridles, degenerates into a tyranny that, feeding on itself, grows every day more infamous.
We daily see dogs degenerate before our eyes, and it has not yet been satisfactorily ascertained whether they arise from one or several species.
"If I travel much longer with two such learned and philosophical scholars, I shall inevitably degenerate into an intellectual Dodder," yawned Alma.
Such degenerate forms remain degenerate, and are never known to regenerate and again to reach the higher stage of evolution from which they arose.