degenerate
adj.adj. having lost the good qualities or high standards that something used to have. You use it to describe a person or situation that has become worse or immoral.
adj. having declined to an inferior state or lower standard of morality and vitality. Often used to describe social or biological decline; can also refer to mathematical cases that have lost their typical complexity.
The once-grand hotel had become a degenerate place for crime.
Critics argued that the reality show was a degenerate form of entertainment that lowered the standards of public discourse.
In certain mathematical proofs, a degenerate case occurs when a shape or function simplifies into a much more basic form, such as a circle becoming a single point.
Learned borrowing from Latin dēgenerātus. See -ate (adjective-forming suffix) for more.
From a substantivation of the above adjective, see -ate (noun-forming suffix) for more. Compare French dégénéré.
From Latin degenerō + -ate (verb-forming suffix). Compare Italian degenerare, French dégénérer (and its older (and now obsolete) English cognate from Middle French, degener). By surface analysis, de- + generate.
Often used as a predicative adjective after linking verbs like 'become' or 'grow'.