dysgenic, a.
(dɪsˈdʒɛnɪk)
[f. dys- + -genic.]
Exerting a detrimental effect on the race, tending towards racial degeneration, spec. opposed to eugenic. Hence dysˈgenically adv.
| 1915 W. R. Inge Outspoken Ess. (1919) 41 Its [sc. frequent war's] dysgenic effect, by eliminating the strongest and healthiest of the population, while leaving the weaklings at home to be the fathers of the next generation. 1922 Edin. Rev. July 46 Encouraging the dysgenic art of fortune-hunting. 1926 Spectator 1 May 804/2 Conceptive control has been an almost entirely harmful or dysgenic factor. 1928 G. B. Shaw Intell. Woman's Guide Socialism xxxviii. 150 Division of society into classes, with the resultant dysgenic restrictions on marriage. 1934 C. P. Blacker Chances of Morbid Inheritance iv. 122 If our propaganda succeeds another barrier against dysgenic marriages will have gone. 1937 A. Huxley Ends & Means viii. 79 A residual population, dysgenically selected for its lack of spirit and intellectual gifts. Ibid. ix. 90 So far as individuals are concerned, war selects dysgenically. 1971 Daily Tel. 5 Oct. 14/2 The ‘two child family’ or ‘Zero Population Growth’..have the merit that they are less dysgenic than is the present irresponsible propagation. |
B. n. pl. [Cf. eugenic n.] Racial degeneration, or its study.
| 1920 A. Huxley in London Mercury June 182 A process which we may be permitted to call dysgenics—the carrying on of the species by the worst members. 1951 New Biol. XI. 24 Eugenics or dysgenics..are necessarily in progress all the time. 1958 Times Lit. Suppl. 11 July 386/3 Racial dilution, dysgenics, and national and social loss of status. 1970 New Scientist 28 May 438/3 ‘Dysgenics’, as Shockley describes it, has to do with ‘retrogression evolution’. |