degenerációs

Degeneráció refers to a process of decline or deterioration. In biology, it often describes the gradual loss of function or structure in cells, tissues, or organs over time. This can be a natural part of aging or can be caused by disease, injury, or environmental factors. For example, age-related macular degeneration affects vision by damaging the retina, while osteoarthritis is a degenerative joint disease characterized by the breakdown of cartilage.

The term can also be used in other contexts. In mathematics, a degenerate case is a situation where a geometric object or mathematical structure loses a dimension or becomes trivial. For instance, a circle can be considered a degenerate ellipse where the two foci coincide, or a line can be a degenerate parabola. In linguistics, degeneration might refer to the simplification or loss of complex grammatical features in a language over time. The concept of degeneration broadly implies a movement from a more complex or functional state to a simpler or less functional one.