degrade
Americanverb (used with object)
-
degrades,
present (3rd person singular)
-
degraded,
past participle, past
-
degrading
present participle
-
to lower in dignity or estimation; bring into contempt.
He felt they were degrading him by making him report to the supervisor.
- Antonyms:
- exalt
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to lower in character or quality; debase.
- Antonyms:
- exalt
-
to reduce (someone) to a lower rank, degree, etc.; deprive of office, rank, status, or title, especially as a punishment.
degraded from director to assistant director.
- Antonyms:
- promote
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to reduce in amount, strength, intensity, etc.
-
Physical Geography. to wear down by erosion, as hills.
-
Chemistry. to break down (a compound, especially an organic hydrocarbon).
verb (used without object)
-
degrades,
present (3rd person singular)
-
degraded,
past participle, past
-
degrading
present participle
-
to become degraded; weaken or worsen; deteriorate.
-
Chemistry. (especially of an organic hydrocarbon compound) to break down or decompose.
verb
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(tr) to reduce in worth, character, etc; disgrace; dishonour
-
(tr) to reduce in rank, status, or degree; remove from office; demote
-
(tr) to reduce in strength, quality, intensity, etc
-
to reduce or be reduced by erosion or down-cutting, as a land surface or bed of a river Compare aggrade
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chem to decompose or be decomposed into atoms or smaller molecules
Synonym Usage
See humble.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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degradesimple
-
degradessimple
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have degradedperfect
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has degradedperfect
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am degradingprogressive
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are degradingprogressive
-
is degradingprogressive
-
have been degradingperfect progressive
-
has been degradingperfect progressive
Past
-
degradedsimple
-
had degradedperfect
-
was degradingprogressive
-
were degradingprogressive
-
had been degradingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of degrade
First recorded in 1275–1325; Middle English degraden, from Late Latin dēgradāre, from Latin dē- de- + grad(us) “step, rank, progress” ( see grade) + -āre, infinitive verb suffix
Explanation
To degrade means to reduce the worth of something, as when smoke and pollution degrade the environment. The word can also mean to disrespect or insult: thoughtless comments can degrade a person. If you whistle at a passing woman, you're being disrespectful — your behavior degrades women. Degrade is often used to mean to insult someone because of their gender or race. Degrade also means to break down. Old paper or photographs can degrade when left in the light — their material breaks down so that they crumble at a touch.
Vocabulary lists containing degrade
30 GRE Words Beginning with "D"
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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How Low Can You Go? Synonyms for "Downward"
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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:
After letting the culture of William Morris degrade for years?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 15, 2026
Recognizing that 9/11’s horrors compounded over the years does not degrade the memory of its initial victims.
From Slate ● Sep. 11, 2026
Laboratory tests showed that enzymes from very distantly related animals, including a sponge, an earthworm and a springtail, could also degrade microbial PHAs.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 17, 2026
He then added he would not attend the count as Essex Police had told him about an "organised campaign to disrupt and degrade the result".
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026
Galen’s text had never been accompanied by illustrations—Galen explicitly said that illustrations were worthless—because in a manuscript culture complex illustrations degrade rapidly each time they are copied.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
They said these often contained heavy metal salts or nitrosamines that can leach into the environment once the balloon degrades.
From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2026
"Most importantly, we found that the exact spatial arrangement of these neighboring groups dramatically changes how fast the polymer degrades," Gu said.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 4, 2026
Ferrari also faces the risk of its EV losing value faster than its traditional models as the battery degrades.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2025
Sickness spreads, often directly through viruses or indirectly by depleting family resources, putting stress on people that degrades their health.
From Salon ● May 27, 2025
It degrades man, in denying to him a true personality, and so making him simply a thing.
From Theology and the Social Consciousness A Study of the Relations of the Social Consciousness to Theology (2nd ed.) by Henry Churchill King
The Tennessee Department of Correction has not specifically addressed an allegation from Pike's legal team that the pentobarbital it used was "degraded".
From BBC ● Oct. 1, 2026
They can be produced on already degraded land, or made from waste products such as used cooking oil.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 2026
If some of these satellites get hacked, damaged, derailed, or destroyed, America’s ability to fight a war would be seriously degraded.
From Slate ● Sep. 17, 2026
There are a few fun visual gags about the degraded far-future — a hospital named St. God’s, the city’s digital clock tower being stuck on a blinking 12:00 — but its punchlines tend toward nasty.
From Salon ● Sep. 6, 2026
The bubbles were small, inconspicuous, and held a strange, unpalatable beauty when shafts of light pierced them and brightened his mouth with a briefly degraded spectrum of color.
From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy
"The logic is that with a warming planet, you will see shrinking glaciers, lots of snow melt. The permafrost that is partially holding some mountainsides together is warming and thawing and degrading."
From BBC ● Aug. 27, 2026
“The experience was traumatizing, degrading and humiliating,” André said when the lawsuit was filed.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2026
A ride on a people mover feels even more degrading in comparison to the alternative mode serving other travelers.
From Slate ● Aug. 18, 2026
Known as living plastics, these materials contain dormant microbes capable of degrading the surrounding polymer.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 17, 2026
Each, I felt, was degrading, and I thought we should insist on the honorific “Mister.”
From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela
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.
