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Definition of "dysgenic" [dysgenic]

  • Relating to or causing the deterioration of hereditary qualities in offspring. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "dysgenic" in a sentence
  • "There was no allusion to the existence of venereal disease, far and away the most appalling of what I have called dysgenic forces, in any official eugenic publication until April, 1909, when in the Eugenics Review we dared to make a cautious and half-ashamed beginning; half-ashamed to stand up against syphilis and gonorrh [oe] a. When one thinks of the things that we are not ashamed to do, as individuals or as nations, it is to reflect that perhaps we have "let the tiger die" too utterly, and that just as woman is ceasing to be a mammal, man is perhaps ceasing to be even a vertebrate."
  • "The work of the eugenicists included racism and white supremacy, promoting birth control among the "dysgenic," restricting immigration, sterilizing the handicapped, promoting euthanasia, and seeking ways to increase the number of genetically well-endowed individuals."
  • "At the First National Conference on Race Betterment, University of Wisconsin eugenicist Leon J. Cole lectured on the "dysgenic" effects of charity and medicine on eugenic progress."