Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Degrade   /dɪgrˈeɪd/   Listen
Degrade

verb
(past & past part. degraded; pres. part. degrading)
1.
Reduce the level of land, as by erosion.
2.
Reduce in worth or character, usually verbally.  Synonyms: demean, disgrace, put down, take down.  "His critics took him down after the lecture"
3.
Lower the grade of something; reduce its worth.  Synonym: cheapen.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Degrade" Quotes from Famous Books



... To degrade man tends to deform him. The suppression of his state was completed by disfigurement. Certain vivisectors of that period succeeded marvellously well in effacing from the human face the divine effigy. Doctor Conquest, member of the Amen Street College, and judicial visitor ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... existence with the images born of his imagination,—in looking round for some such man, my thoughts rested upon you. Afar from our turbulent cabals; from the ignoble jealousy and the sordid strife which degrade and acerbate the ambition of Genius,—in your Roman Home, you have lived amidst all that is loveliest and least perishable in the past, and contributed with the noblest aims, and in the purest spirit, to the mighty heirlooms of the future. Your youth has been devoted to toil, that ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... not!" exclaimed the Judge, placing his hand upon Perry's mouth. "Pure as all your life has been, you shall not degrade it with such a word. Oh, my son!—my orphan son!—dear faithful prattler around my feet for all these desolate and haunted years, I have doubted for your sake every thing—that wedlock was good, that pride of virtuous origin was wise, that human ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend

... moral purpose; only as there is stitched into the cloth the diviner thread of hopeful love; only as the deed gathers the aroma of an aspiring human life, is it a dignified transaction. But when you make of the laborer a slave, degrade his work to a mere fight for bread, harass him by continual debt, put him in a vile tenement house that smothers all holy ambition, labor has no longer dignity, it smells rather of the ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks

... oppressiveness, the hills assume more rounded forms, and from the general obscurity, the palms, a tree made for moonlight, stand out in soft distinctness. At such a time we forget the foul crimes which disfigure the past, and the vices which degrade the present of this fair land, and can easily imagine ourselves in the garden where the yet unfallen progenitors of mankind walked under a firmament 'glowing with living sapphires,' and together hymned the praises of their Creator. Daylight chases away this illusion, but brings back the reality ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various


More quotes...



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org