debauch

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The noisy debauch was at an end.

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Definitions (18)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (7)

  1. transitive verb To corrupt morally.
  2. transitive verb To lead away from excellence or virtue.
  3. transitive verb To reduce the value, quality, or excellence of; debase. See Synonyms at corrupt.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (7)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (2)

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Examples (50)

  • Haggard after their night's debauch, they presented a sorry sight, their bare bodies painted and decked with beads, coloured wools, and scraps of red and yellow silk, and many with babies at their side. —  Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary
  • Dr. Nacquart warned him against the consequences of such brain debauch, as he termed it, prophesying that harm would ensue. —  Balzac
  • The man feels as much worse than usual during the hours and days that follow his debauch, as he felt better than usual during the brief moments that he was taking his drinks. —  Practical Ethics
  • In the grand duchy of Baden the debauch is punished by a law of somewhat harsh logic, which commits to prison both drunkards and those who have furnished the wherewithal to excess. —  Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873
  • The eye at length became more familiar with lineaments bloated or rigid with passion and debauch, and the ear accustomed to the endless vicissitudes of the servants' hall, which discharged and received an endless succession of the same debased, despised, and unhappily despicable beings. —  The History of Tasmania , Volume II
 

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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

wassail ·  revelry ·  saturnalia ·  spree ·  orgy ·  carouse ·  debauchery ·  jollification ·  carousal ·  revel ·  guzzle ·  escapade
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. French débaucher, from Old French desbauchier, to lead astray, roughhew timber : des-, de- + bauch, beam, of Germanic origin.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. Formerly also debosh, deboish; from Old French desbaucher, French débaucher, corrupt, seduce, mislead, apparently a fig. use of Old French desbaucher, hew away, chip, rough-hew, as a piece of timber, from des- privative, away, off, + baucher, hew, chip, rough-hew, square, as a piece of timber, from bauch, bauc, balc, masculine, a beam, log, bauche, feminine, a beam, later also a row or course of stones in masonry (cf. bauche, bauge, a hut); of Teutonic origin: Old Dutch balke, Dutch balk = Middle Low German balke = Old High German balcho, balko, Middle High German balke, German balke, balken = Icelandic bālkr = Sw. Norwegian Danish balk, a beam, balk: see balk, n.
  2. from French débauche, later Italian deboscia; from the verb.
 

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/dəˈbɔtʃ/
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