degradation

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The act or process of degrading.
2. n. The state of being degraded; degeneration.
3. n. A decline to a lower condition, quality, or level.
4. n. Geology A general lowering of the earth's surface by erosion or weathering.
5. n. Chemistry Decomposition of a compound by stages, exhibiting well-defined intermediate products.
6. n. Computer Science The state in which a computer operates when some of its memory or peripherals are not available.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A reducing in rank; the act of depriving one of a degree of honor, of dignity, or of rank; deposition, removal, or dismissal from rank or office: as, the degradation of a general. Specifically— In eccles, law, the act of depriving an ecclesiastic of his orders or privileges, or of both. The Roman Catholic Church recognizes two methods of degradation. By the simple or verbal degradation the accused is deprived of all his orders and benefices. By the solemn or real degradation he is with great ceremony stripped of his ecclesiastical vestments and ornaments and publicly reproached by the bishop, deprived of his orders and benefices as in simple degradation, and of his various privileges. He remains, however, a priest, and can in special emergencies consecrate and administer the sacraments. Degradation is now resorted to only in extreme cases. In the early church the culprit was degraded by removal from a higher to a lower grade of office. See deprivation, 4.
2. n. The state of being reduced from a higher to a lower grade of power, character, or estimation; degeneracy; debasement.
3. n. The act of sinking to a lower level in space.
4. n. Diminution or reduction, as of strength, value, altitude, or magnitude.
5. n. In painting, a lessening and obscuring of distant objects in a landscape, to give the effect of distance.
6. n. In geology, the reduction or wearing down of higher lands, rocks, strata, etc., by the action of water or other causes.
7. n. In biology, abortive structural development; retrograde metamorphosis, such as that witnessed in many parasites as a result of their parasitism.
8. n. In botany, a change consisting of abstraction, loss, abortion, or non-development of usual organs.
9. n. In heraldry, same as abatement.
10. n. In organic chemistry, the resolution of the molecule of a compound into other substances of smaller molecular weight. It denotes the systematic elimination of one carbon atom after another from a compound, whereby we pass down a homologous series, step by step, from the more to the less complex.

Wiktionary

1. n. The act of reducing in rank, character, or reputation, or of abasing; a lowering from one's standing or rank in office or society; diminution; as, the degradation of a peer, a knight, a general, or a bishop.
2. n. The state of being reduced in rank, character, or reputation; baseness; moral, physical, or intellectual degeneracy; disgrace; abasement; debasement.
3. n. Diminution or reduction of strength, efficacy, or value; degeneration; deterioration.
4. n. A gradual wearing down or wasting, as of rocks and banks, by the action of water, frost etc.
5. n. A deleterious change in the chemical structure, physical properties or appearance of a material from natural or artificial exposure.
6. n. The state or condition of a species or group which exhibits degraded forms; degeneration.
7. n. Arrest of development, or degeneration of any organ, or of the body as a whole.
8. n. The gradual breakdown of components of a material, as a result of a natural element, i.e.: heat, cold and wind.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The act of reducing in rank, character, or reputation, or of abasing; a lowering from one's standing or rank in office or society; diminution.
2. n. The state of being reduced in rank, character, or reputation; baseness; moral, physical, or intellectual degeneracy; disgrace; abasement; debasement.
3. n. Diminution or reduction of strength, efficacy, or value; degeneration; deterioration.
4. n. A gradual wearing down or wasting, as of rocks and banks, by the action of water, frost etc.
5. n. The state or condition of a species or group which exhibits degraded forms; degeneration.
6. n. Arrest of development, or degeneration of any organ, or of the body as a whole.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a low or downcast state
2. n. changing to a lower state (a less respected state)