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rgan in which its vitality has become either diminished or perverted; a substitution of a lower for a higher form of structure; as, fatty degeneration of the liver.

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.…

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. Palfrey.

To debase; to lower; to degrade; -- followed by the reflexive pronoun. Her son would demean himself by a marriage with an artist's daughter. Thackeray.

The act of demitting, or the state of being demitted; a letting down; a lowering; dejection. "Demission of mind." Hammond. Demission of sovereign authority. L'Estrange.

Tending to lower, depress, or degrade.

To yield or submit; to humble; to lower; as, to demit one's self to humble duties. [R.]

of creation, by others as a great magician who was supposed to command the spirits of the lower world. See Gorgon. Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name Of Demogorgon. Milton.

To reduce to a lower grade, as in school.

The distal bone of the lower jaw in many animals, which may or may not bear teeth.

To lessen in price or estimated value; to lower the worth of; to represent as of little value or claim to esteem; to undervalue. Addison. Which . . . some over-severe phoilosophers may look upon fastidiously, or undervalue and depreciate. Cudworth. To prove that the Americans ought not to be free, we are obliged to dep…

To press down; to cause to sink; to let fall; to lower; as, to depress the muzzle of a gun; to depress the eyes. "With lips depressed." Tennyson.

An agent or remedy which lowers the vital powers.

Concave on the upper side; -- said of a leaf whose disk is lower than the border.

The operation of reducing to a lower degree; -- said of equations.

Depressing or diminishing the capacity for movement, as depressomotor nerves, which lower or inhibit muscular activity. -- n.

le that depresses or tends to draw down a part. Depressor nerve (Physiol.), a nerve which lowers the activity of an organ; as, the depressor nerve of the heart.

To pass from a higher to a lower place; to move downwards; to come or go down in any way, as by falling, flowing, walking, etc.; to plunge; to fall; to incline downward; -- the opposite of ascend. The rain descended, and the floods came. Matt. vii. 25. We will here descend to matters of later date. Fuller.…

The act of descending, or passing downward; change of place from higher to lower.

sert island. He . . . went aside privately into a desert place. Luke ix. 10. Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. Gray. Desert flora (Bot.), the assemblage of plants growing naturally in a desert, or in a dry and apparently unproductive place. -- Desert hare (Zoöl.), a…