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The act of reducing in rank, character, or reputation, or of abasing; a lowering from one's standing or rank in office or society; diminution; as, the degradation of a peer, a knight, a general, or a bishop. He saw many removes and degradations in all the other offices of which he had been possessed. Clarendon.…

The act of humbling or abasing one's self. Adoration implies submission and dejection. Bp. Pearson.

A towel or napkin for wiping the hands, etc. Let one attend him with a silver basin, . . . Another bear the ewer, the third a diaper. Shak.

An artificial basin or an inclosure in connection with a harbor or river, -- used for the reception of vessels, and provided with gates for keeping in or shutting out the tide.

A kind of widemouthed pitcher or jug; esp., one used to hold water for the toilet. Basins and ewers to lave her dainty hands. Shak.

A basin or stone vessel in which water is contained for baptizing. That name was given me at the font. Shak.

am of water; also, the structure or works in which such a jet or stream rises or flows; a basin built and constantly supplied with pure water for drinking and other useful purposes, or for ornament.

The crucible or basin in a furnace which receives the molten metal. Knight.

A genus of large eocene birds from the Paris basin.

A hollow place in the earth; an abyss; a deep chasm or basin, He then surveyed Hell and the gulf between. Milton. Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed. Luke xvi. 26.

A lip or edge, as of a basin.

A basin or other vessel for washing in.

A vessel for washing; a large basin.

divination practiced with water in a basin, by throwing three stones into it, and invoking the demon whose aid was sought.

Milliolitic. Miliolite limestone (Geol.), a building stone, one of the group of the Paris basin, almost entirely made up of many-chambered microscopic shells.

A natural basin, containing salt or fresh water, or mud. Flash in the pan. See under Flash. -- To savor of the pan, to suggest the process of cooking or burning; in a theological sense, to be heretical. Ridley. Southey.

A partially inclosed basin in which oysters are grown. [Written also parc.] Park of artillery. See under Artillery. -- Park phaeton, a small, low carriage, for use in parks.

The calyx of a crinoid. Pelvis of the kidney (Anat.), the basinlike cavity into which the ureter expands as it joins the kidney.

A niche near the altar in a church, containing a small basin for rinsing altar vessels.

A little basin; a porringer; a skillet.