Degenerate vs Sap - What's the difference?

As nouns the difference between degenerate and sap

is that degenerate is one is degenerate, who has fallen from previous stature while sap is wax.

As an adjective degenerate

is (of qualities) having deteriorated, degraded or fallen from normal, coherent, balanced and desirable to undesirable and typically abnormal.

As a verb degenerate

is to lose good or desirable qualities.

degenerate

English

Adjective

(en adjective)

(of qualities) Having deteriorated, degraded or fallen from normal, coherent, balanced and desirable to undesirable and typically abnormal.

* Shakespeare

faint-hearted and degenerate king

* Jonathan Swift

degenerate from their ancient blood

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-03

, author= , title=The Smallest Cell , volume=101, issue=2, page=83 , magazine= citation , passage=It is likely that the long evolutionary trajectory of Mycoplasma went from a reductive autotroph to oxidative heterotroph to a cell-wall–defective degenerate parasite. This evolutionary trajectory assumes the simplicity to complexity route of biogenesis, a point of view that is not universally accepted.}}

(of a human or system) Having lost good or desirable qualities.

(of an encoding or function) Having multiple domain elements correspond to one element of the range.

''The genetic code is degenerate because a single amino acid can be coded by one of several codons.

(mathematics) A degenerate case is a limiting case in which a class of object changes its nature so as to belong to another, usually simpler, class.

(physics) Having the same quantum energy level.

Derived terms

* (physics) degenerate matter

Noun

(en noun)

One is degenerate, who has fallen from previous stature.

You are a degenerate , boy. You're a disgrace to your ancestors.

Verb

(degenerat)

To lose good or desirable qualities.

His condition continued to degenerate even after admission to hospital.

* 1870 , Shirley Hibberd, Rustic Adornments for Homes of Taste (page 170)

Another bird quickly learned to imitate the song of a canary that was mated with it, but as the parrakeet improved in the performance the canary degenerated , and came at last to mingle the other bird's harsh chitterings with its own proper music.

To cause to lose good or desirable qualities.

Derived terms

* degeneration

External links

* * ----

sap

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) sap, from (etyl) ), from *''sap 'to taste'. More at sage.

Noun

(wikipedia sap)

(uncountable) The juice of plants of any kind, especially the ascending and descending juices or circulating fluid essential to nutrition.

(uncountable) The sap-wood, or alburnum, of a tree.

(slang, countable) A simpleton; a saphead; a milksop; a naive person.

Derived terms

(terms derived from sap) * crude sap * elaborated sap * sap ball * sap green * saphead * sapling * sap poison * sap rot * sapsucker * sap tube

Etymology 2

Probably from sapling.

Noun

(en noun)

(countable, US, slang) A short wooden club; a leather-covered hand weapon; a blackjack.

(rfimage)

Verb

(sapp)

(slang) To strike with a sap (with a blackjack).

Etymology 3

From (etyl) saper (compare Spanish zapar and Italian zappare) from .

Noun

(en noun)

(military) A narrow ditch or trench made from the foremost parallel toward the glacis or covert way of a besieged place by digging under cover of gabions, etc.

Derived terms

* sap fagot * sap roller * sapper

Verb

(sapp)

To subvert by digging or wearing away; to mine; to undermine; to destroy the foundation of.

* (rfdate)

Nor safe their dwellings were, for sapped by floods, / Their houses fell upon their household gods.

(military) To pierce with saps.

To make unstable or infirm; to unsettle; to weaken.

* 1850 ,

Ring out the grief that saps the mind

To gradually weaken.

* to sap one’s conscience

To proceed by mining, or by secretly undermining; to execute saps — 12

* (rfdate)

Both assaults carried on by sapping .

Anagrams

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