'Degenerate' is Latin for 'fallen from one's kind' — from 'genus' (birth). A lineage in decline.
To decline or deteriorate from a former or original state; having lost qualities considered normal or desirable; a person whose behavior is considered morally corrupt.
From Latin 'dēgenerātus,' past participle of 'dēgenerāre' (to depart from one's kind, to fall from ancestral quality), from 'dēgener' (base, ignoble, departing from one's race), composed of 'dē-' (away from, down from, reversing) + 'genus, generis' (birth, race, kind, stock), from PIE *ǵenh₁- (to beget, to give birth, to produce). The PIE root *ǵenh₁- is among the most productive in Indo-European, yielding Latin 'genus,' 'generāre,' 'natio,' Greek 'génos' (γένος), Sanskrit 'janas,' Old English 'cynn' (kin), and Germanic *kunjam. The original sense of 'degenerate' was strictly biological — falling away from the inherited qualities of one's lineage, as a plant variety that has reverted to a coarser strain. The
In physics and mathematics, 'degenerate' has a value-neutral technical meaning: a 'degenerate' state is one where different configurations produce the same energy level or where a single point represents multiple solutions. This scientific usage strips away the moral judgment the word carries in everyday English, returning it closer to its etymological sense of 'departing from the normal type.'