Astrophysics

One adjective in this list needs handling with care once you leave the laboratory. In physics entartet is a neutral technical term: entartete Materie is matter packed so densely that its electrons cannot be squeezed any closer, and the Entartungsdruck they exert is what holds up der Weiße Zwerg. Quantum mechanics calls two states with the same energy entartet, and medicine speaks of entartete Zellen when cells turn malignant. Outside the sciences, however, the word is marked. The National Socialists branded modern art entartete Kunst, and that use has clung to it ever since. So a physicist writes entartet without a second thought, while anyone describing a party that got out of hand or a debate that turned nasty reaches for ausarten instead. English ‘degenerate’ does both jobs; German has shared them out between two verbs built on the same noun, die Art.