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Degeneration vs Dystrophy - What's the difference?

degeneration | dystrophy |

As nouns the difference between degeneration and dystrophy

is that degeneration is degeneration, morbidity while dystrophy is a wasting of body tissues, of genetic origin or due to inadequate or defective nutrition.

degeneration

English

Noun

(en-noun)
  • (uncountable) The process or state of growing worse, or the state of having become worse.
  • * 1913, B. H. Carrol, An Interpretation of the English Bible ,
    • The modern cry of "more liberty and less creed" is a degeneration from a vertebrate to a jellyfish.
  • (uncountable) That condition of a tissue or an organ in which its vitality has become either diminished or perverted; a substitution of a lower for a higher form of structure.
    • fatty degeneration of the liver
  • (uncountable) Gradual deterioration, from natural causes, of any class of animals or plants or any particular organ or organs; hereditary degradation of type.
  • (countable) A thing that has degenerated.
  • * Sir Thomas Browne
    • cockle, aracus, and other degenerations

    Synonyms

    * (process or state of growing worse) decline, degradation, debasement,degeneracy, deterioration

    Related terms

    * degenerate

    dystrophy

    English

    Alternative forms

    * dystrophia

    Noun

    (dystrophies)
  • A wasting of body tissues, of genetic origin or due to inadequate or defective nutrition.

    • Derived terms

    * dystrophic * muscular dystrophy