degenerate state

American  

noun

1. Physics. Usually degenerate states. a quantum state of a system, having the same energy level as, but a different wave function from, another state of the system.

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Etymology

Origin of degenerate state

First recorded in 1925–30

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

degenerate state

She was once the noblest of peoples: will you let contemporary history register for the ages her now degenerate state?

From The Secret of Divine Civilization by `Abdu'l-Bahá

Anna Byns, an oracle with the Catholic party, wrote when the language was in its most degenerate state, under Margaret of Austria.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 36, October, 1860 by Various

Islamism in these vast territories is in an exceedingly degenerate state when compared with either its first development in the Arabian desert, or with what now obtains in Turkey.

From History of the Moors of Spain by Florian, M.

In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking.

From Ralph Waldo Emerson by Holmes, Oliver Wendell

It offered one more assurance, had I needed it, of the degenerate state of the civilization upon which I was turning my back.

From Frenzied Fiction by Leacock, Stephen