Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To lower in quality or value; make inferior or less valuable.
  • intransitive verb To lower in dignity; dishonor or disgrace: synonym: debase.
  • intransitive verb To reduce in grade, rank, or status; demote.
  • intransitive verb Geology To lower or wear away by erosion or weathering.
  • intransitive verb To cause (an organic compound) to undergo degradation.
  • intransitive verb To fall to a lower rank or status.
  • intransitive verb To undergo degradation; decompose.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In thermodynamics, to convert from a form of greater to one of less availability: said of certain transformations of energy.
  • To reduce from a higher to a lower rank, degree, or type. Specifically
  • To deprive of any office or dignity; strip of honors: as, to degrade a general officer.
  • To lower in character; cause to deteriorate; lessen the value or worth of; debase: as, drunkenness degrades a man to the level of a beast.
  • In biology: To reduce in taxonomic rank; lower in the scale of classification: as, to degrade an order to the rank of a family.
  • To reduce in complexity of structure or function; simplify morphologically or physiologically: as, an organism degraded by parasitic habit.
  • In geology, to reduce in altitude or magnitude, as hills and mountains or icebergs; wear down, as by the weather.
  • In optics, to lower in position in the spectrum; increase the wave-length of (a ray of light), and hence diminish (its) refrangibility, as by the action of a fluorescent substance. See fluorescence.
  • To diminish the strength, purity, size, etc., of.
  • Synonyms and Debase, Disgrace, etc. (see abase); to dishonor, break, cashier, reduce to inferior rank. To lower, sink, impair, injure, pervert, pollute. See list under debase.
  • In natural history, to degenerate in type; pass from a higher type of structure to a lower.
  • To degenerate; become lower in character; deteriorate.
  • In a university, to take, for some particular reason, a lower degree than one is entitled to, or to avoid taking a degree at the proper or usual time; descend from a higher to a lower degree.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To reduce from a higher to a lower rank or degree; to lower in rank; to deprive of office or dignity; to strip of honors.
  • transitive verb To reduce in estimation, character, or reputation; to lessen the value of; to lower the physical, moral, or intellectual character of; to debase; to bring shame or contempt upon; to disgrace.
  • transitive verb (Geol.) To reduce in altitude or magnitude, as hills and mountains; to wear down.
  • intransitive verb (Biol.) To degenerate; to pass from a higher to a lower type of structure.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive To lower in value or social position.
  • verb intransitive To reduce in quality or purity.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb lower the grade of something; reduce its worth
  • verb reduce the level of land, as by erosion
  • verb reduce in worth or character, usually verbally

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English degraden, from Old French degrader, from Late Latin dēgradāre : Latin dē-, de- + Latin gradus, step; see ghredh- in Indo-European roots.]

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Examples

  • Marty Sader has accomplished that very feat as we watch him degrade from a healthy, caring human being to a rail-thin piece of filth rotting in the corner.

    Current Movie Reviews, Independent Movies - Film Threat 2006

  • You can wach them bio degrade, which is always a wonderful thing.

    rock, paper, electrons v.1 2009

  • If he says that things cannot degrade, that is, change downwards into lower forms, ask him, who told him that water-babies were lower than land-babies?

    The Water Babies 2007

  • Your noblesse did not deserve punishment: but to degrade is to punish.

    Paras. 225-249 1909

  • You punish a number of individuals who have been advanced under the existing order of things to the highest offices in the magistracy of the city; I say you punish, because to degrade is to punish.

    At the Bar of the House of Lords 1906

  • If he says that things cannot degrade, that is, change downwards into lower forms, ask him, who told him that water-babies were lower than land-babies?

    The Water-Babies A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby Charles Kingsley 1847

  • If he says that things cannot degrade, that is, change downwards into lower forms, ask him, who told him that water-babies were lower than land-babies?

    The Water-Babies Charles Kingsley 1847

  • Your noblesse did not deserve punishment; but to degrade is to punish.

    The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 03 (of 12) Edmund Burke 1763

  • It does not degrade, which is one of the major issues with this material from an environmental standpoint.

    Sierra Sun - Top Stories 2009

  • It does not degrade, which is one of the major issues with this material from an environmental standpoint.

    Sierra Sun - Top Stories 2009

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