Search the Dictionary

upward or downward, in quality, rank, acquirement, and the like; a stage in progression; grade; gradation; as, degrees of vice and virtue; to advance by slow degrees; degree of comparison.

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.

Tending to lower, depress, or degrade.

To reduce to a lower grade, as in school.

h on or upon; as, dependent on God; dependent upon friends. England, long dependent and degraded, was again a power of the first rank. Macaulay. Dependent covenant or contract (Law), one not binding until some connecting stipulation is performed. -- Dependent variable (Math.), a varying quantity whose changes are arbi…

One who deposes or degrades from office.

Diminished in value; dishonored; degraded. [R.] Shak.

A degraded tribe of California Indians; -- so called from their practice of digging roots for food.

To lessen the authority or dignity of; to put down; to degrade; to abase; to weaken. This doth nothing diminish their opinion. Robynson (More's Utopia). I will diminish them, that they shall no more rule over the nations. Ezek. xxix. 15. O thou . . . at whose sight all the stars Hide their diminished heads. Milton.…

f the general planetary motion, or from west to east; in the order of the signs; not retrograde; -- said of the motion of a celestial body. Direct action. (Mach.) See Direct-acting. -- Direct discourse (Gram.), the language of any one quoted without change in its form; as, he said "I can not come;" -- correlative to i…

To debase or degrade. [Obs.] Nor you nor your house were so much as spoken of before I disbased myself. B. Jonson.

To deprive of that which ennobles; to degrade. An unworthy behavior degrades and disennobles a man. Guardian.

To degrade; to reduce in rank. [Obs.] Tyndale.

To match unequally; to degrade or dishonor by an unequal marriage. [Obs.] Alas! that any of my nation Should ever so foul disparaged be. Chaucer.

To strip of, or as of, a plume, or plumes; to deprive of decoration; to dishonor; to degrade. Displumed, degraded, and metamorphosed. Burke.

To degrade from rank. [Obs.]

To reduce to a lower rating or rank; to degrade. Marryat.

To deprive of worth; to degrade. [Obs.] Feltham.

. -- Divisible offense (Law), an offense containing a lesser offense in one of a greater grade, so that on the latter there can be an acquittal, while on the former there can be a conviction. -- Di*vis"i*ble*ness, n. -- Di*vis"i*bly, adv.

A grade or rank in classification; a portion of a tribe or of a class; or, in some recent authorities, equivalent to a subkingdom. Cell division (Biol.), a method of cell increase, in which new cells are formed by the division of the parent cell. In this process, the cell nucleus undergoes peculiar differentiations and…