degenerate vs fail

degenerate

verb
  • To lose good or desirable qualities. 

  • To cause to lose good or desirable qualities. 

adj
  • Having lost good or desirable qualities. 

  • Having deteriorated, degraded or fallen from normal, coherent, balanced and desirable to undesirable and typically abnormal; an immoral or corrupt person. 

  • Having the same quantum energy level. 

  • Having multiple domain elements correspond to one element of the range. 

  • Having multiple different (linearly independent) eigenvectors. 

noun
  • One who is degenerate, who has fallen from previous stature. 

fail

verb
  • To be wanting; to fall short; to be or become deficient in any measure or degree up to total absence. 

  • Not to achieve a particular stated goal. (Usage note: The direct object of this word is usually an infinitive.) 

  • To become unable to meet one's engagements; especially, to be unable to pay one's debts or discharge one's business obligation; to become bankrupt or insolvent. 

  • To receive one or more non-passing grades in academic pursuits. 

  • To give a student a non-passing grade in an academic endeavour. 

  • To be wanting to, to be insufficient for, to disappoint, to desert; to disappoint one's expectations. 

  • To neglect. 

  • To be unsuccessful. 

  • Of a machine, etc.: to cease to operate correctly. 

noun
  • A failure, especially of a financial transaction (a termination of an action). 

  • A failure (condition of being unsuccessful). 

  • A failing grade in an academic examination. 

  • Poor quality; substandard workmanship. 

  • A failure (something incapable of success). 

  • A piece of turf cut from grassland. 

adj
  • Unsuccessful; inadequate; unacceptable in some way. 

How often have the words degenerate and fail occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )