degener

Forms

dēgener (genitive dēgeneris); third-declension one-termination adjective^[1]

Etymology

The OLD and the TLL take it as a back-formation from Latin dēgenerō (“to degenerate”).^[2][3] Lewis & Short and Wiktionary instead form it from dē- and genus (“race, kind”), and Priscian from the word for family.^[4][1][3] De Vaan traces genus to Proto-Indo-European *ǵenh₁-o/es- (“race, offspring”), from the root of gignō (“to beget”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Virgil,^[6] in whose Aeneid fear proves souls low-born.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It means of inferior stock or low-born, and of animals and plants of an inferior breed, as Columella's common, low-bred ass.^[2] Most often it is less worthy than one's ancestors, degenerate: in Virgil a speaker bids Achilles be told that his son Neoptolemus is degenerate.^[2][4] With a genitive it means unworthy of, as Ovid's young man not unworthy of his father's eloquence.^[2] It is also soft or weak, as Seneca's degenerate bull that does not lead the herd, and of acts ignoble or contemptible.^[2] Lewis & Short note that it is mostly poetic and post-Augustan, frequent in Pliny and Tacitus.^[4] Church Latin glosses it ignoble, unworthy.^[7]

Timeline

• 70–19 BC – Virgil of fear and of a degenerate son.^[2][6]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid of a son not unworthy of his father.^[2][6]
• 1st century AD – Columella of a low-bred ass.^[2][6]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca of a degenerate bull.^[2][6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of inferior stock, low-born; of animals and plants, of an inferior breed.^[2][1]
2. Less worthy than one's ancestors, degenerate; with a genitive, unworthy of.^[2][4][1]
3. Soft, weak; fallen from former standards.^[2]
4. Of actions, contemptible, ignoble.^[2][7]

Related words

• dēgenerō
• genus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson