DEGRADING • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Degrading

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/dɪgrˈeɪdɪŋ/ Listen

verb

Degrade v. t. (past & past part. degraded; pres. part. degrading)

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; as, to degrade a nobleman, or a general officer. "Prynne was sentenced by the Star Chamber Court to be degraded from the bar."

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; as, vice degrades a man. "O miserable mankind, to what fall Degraded, to what wretched state reserved!" "Yet time ennobles or degrades each line." "Her pride... struggled hard against this degrading passion."

(Geol.) To reduce in altitude or magnitude, as hills and mountains; to wear down.

Synonyms: To abase; demean; lower; reduce. See Abase.

Degrade v. i. (Biol.) To degenerate; to pass from a higher to a lower type of structure; as, a family of plants or animals degrades through this or that genus or group of genera.

adjective

degrading adj. Causing humiliation or degradation; as, a degrading surrender.

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Etymology of 'Degrading'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Degrading" Quotes from Famous Books

... the blame entirely on the English, and spoke with great bitterness of the ill-treatment of Philip, the native chief, who came as passenger in the ship. He described and mimicked his cleaning shoes and knives; his being flogged when he refused to do this degrading work; and, finally, his speech to his countrymen when he came on shore, soliciting their assistance in capturing the vessel, and revenging his ill-treatment. Over and over again our friend George, ...

— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle

... form no opinion," he replied. "I have no idea. I was lying in a ditch inanimate. This is a degrading confession, sir; I can only say in self-defence that perhaps (in your good nature) you have made yourself partly responsible for my shame. I am not used to these ...

— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... earth with useless and unfortunate beings. This changed view upon population will partly follow from the substitution of rational ideas for those prejudices which have penetrated morals with an austerity that is corrupting and degrading.[77] The movement will be further aided by one of the most important steps in human progress—the destruction, namely, of the prejudices that have established inequality of rights between the two sexes, and which are so mischievous even to ...

— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley

... gone, the young campaign manager had an attack of moral nausea. It seemed such a prodigious waste of time and energy to traffic and chaffer with these petty scoundrels. Thus far, every phase of the actual political problem seemed to be meanly degrading, and he was beginning to long keenly for an opportunity to do some really ...

— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... was the famous New York Committee of Seventy, organized in 1894 after Dr. Parkhurst's lurid disclosures of police connivance with every degrading vice. A call was issued by thirty-three well-known citizens for a non-partizan mass meeting, and at this meeting a committee of seventy was appointed "with full power to confer with other anti-Tammany organizations, and to take such actions as may be necessary to further the objects of this ...

— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth

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