debase
Americanverb (used with object)
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debases,
present (3rd person singular)
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debased,
past participle, past
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debasing
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
debasesimple
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debasessimple
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have debasedperfect
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has debasedperfect
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am debasingprogressive
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are debasingprogressive
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is debasingprogressive
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have been debasingperfect progressive
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has been debasingperfect progressive
Past
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debasedsimple
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had debasedperfect
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was debasingprogressive
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were debasingprogressive
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had been debasingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of debase
Explanation
To debase something is to make it corrupt or impure. If your lemonade stand sells “pure lemonade,” you’d insist on using real lemons instead of a mix; using a mix would debase your product. Debase is often used in the context of two things: coins and people. To debase a coin is to replace some of the precious metal in the coin with metal of lesser value. To debase a person is to corrupt them, often by driving them to perform an immoral act like (gasp!) using the lemonade mix. Just promise us you won’t do it.
Vocabulary lists containing debase
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"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
That trade is based on the view that investors will turn to alternative assets like gold or bitcoin on worries that stubborn government deficits and higher inflation will debase currencies like the dollar.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 27, 2026
His motives are obvious: He’s a bully and it’s fun for him to watch people debase themselves to please him.
From Salon ● Apr. 3, 2026
These stories tell us that Diogenes was chased out of his native Sinope, on the north coast of what’s now Turkey, for his supposed role in a scheme to debase the city’s currency.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 17, 2025
“You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that,” Trump said, then he proceeded to debase a journalist who wasn’t there to report on the event because he’d been silenced, forever.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 20, 2025
“His trust! That—that—man . . .” He deserved to be called worse, but in the wood-paneled office, I couldn’t debase myself to use the words that were on the tip of my tongue.
From "The Red Car to Hollywood" by Jennie Liu
In order to emerge victorious in his quest to bring the World Cup to Mexico, De la Torre debases himself and backstabs shamelessly.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 4, 2026
It debases all of us when it is reduced to a few letters and numbers — and, worse, perpetuates injustice when used on a systemic level.
From Salon ● Mar. 15, 2021
And that vision, that fight, in the midst of everything that degrades and debases you, you pull upon community, you pull upon cultural power, you pull upon your spirituality, and you pull upon hope.
From Slate ● Oct. 6, 2020
Rather than explore complex issues and troubling experiences by way of sci-fi future-historical fantasy, “Alita: Battle Angel” debases them—and its exemplary character—under the force of a blinkered and reactionary model of drama and business alike.
From The New Yorker ● Feb. 13, 2019
It is so simple a fact and one that is so hard, apparently, to grasp: Whoever debases others is debasing himself.
From "The Fire Next Time" by James Baldwin
A currency is never debased in the hearing.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 15, 2026
Whereas the European gothic, he concludes, was “an enlightened attack on a debased ruling class or entrenched superstition,” its American version emerged as “a Calvinist exposé of natural human corruption.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026
The very concepts of intellectualism, and of objective knowledge itself, have been debased by a kind of Gresham’s Law, with the bad driving out the good.
From Salon ● Apr. 19, 2026
Scottish National Party MP John Nicolson said the post was "nauseating" and that it "cheapened and debased" politics.
From BBC ● Apr. 9, 2023
Working as a lawyer in South Africa meant operating under a debased system of justice, a code of law that did not enshrine equality but its opposite.
From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela
Robbie’s most deliciously debasing scene is when she throws coins on the ground for a desperate beggar — and then that person forces her to watch as he picks them up.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 11, 2026
The Constitution’s framers wanted to prevent the President from abusing monetary power and debasing the currency as English monarchs had done.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 20, 2026
Dismissing the case, Mr Justice Chamberlain said Yaxley-Lennon's own barrister had accepted there was no evidence his client had been segregated "for the purpose of breaking his resistance or humiliating or debasing him".
From BBC ● Mar. 21, 2025
How debasing it feels to beg for that macaroni noodle.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 1, 2022
It is so simple a fact and one that is so hard, apparently, to grasp: Whoever debases others is debasing himself.
From "The Fire Next Time" by James Baldwin
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
