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1. The process of declining from a higher to a lower level of effective power, vitality or essential quality
   - devolution
    
2. The state of being degenerate in mental or moral qualities
   - degeneracy, decadence, decadency
    
3. Passing from a more complex to a simpler biological form
   - retrogression

Derived forms: degenerations

Type of: abasement, abjection, degradation, physical process, process, shift, transformation, transmutation

Antonym: evolution

Encyclopedia: Degeneration