DEGENERATE

de-jen'-er-at: Only in Jeremiah 2:21, where Judah is compared to a "noble vine" which it "turned into the degenerate branches of a foreign vine." It represents Hebrew curim = "stray" or "degenerate (shoots)," from cur = "to turn aside," especially to turn aside from the right path (Greek pikria, literally, "bitterness").

From the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Edited by James Orr, published in 1939 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.