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The state of being reduced in rank, character, or reputation; baseness; moral, physical, or intellectual degeneracy; disgrace; abasement; debasement. The . . . degradation of a needy man of letters. Macaulay. Deplorable is the degradation of our nature. South. Moments there frequently must be, when a sidegradation of h…

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.

Reduced in rank, character, or reputation; debased; sunken; low; base. The Netherlands . . . were reduced practically to a very degraded condition. Motley.

To reduce to a lower grade, as in school.

To deprive of oxygen; to reduce from the state of an oxide.

on to the direction or disposal of another; inability to help or provide for one's self. Reduced to a servile dependence on their mercy. Burke.

To reduce by destroying or consuming the vital powers of; to exhaust, as a country of its strength or resources, a treasury of money, etc. Saturday Review.

To deprive of polarity; to reduce to an unpolarized condition.

To deprive of inhabitants, whether by death or by expulsion; to reduce greatly the populousness of; to dispeople; to unpeople. Where is this viper, That would depopulate the city Shak.

To reduce (an equation) in a lower degree. To depress the pole (Naut.), to cause the sidereal pole to appear lower or nearer the horizon, as by sailing toward the equator.

Obtained by derivation; derived; not radical, original, or fundamental; originating, deduced, or formed from something else; secondary; as, a derivative conveyance; a derivative word. Derivative circulation, a modification of the circulation found in some parts of the body, in which the arteries empty directly into the…

eceive, as from a source or origin; to obtain by descent or by transmission; to draw; to deduce; -- followed by from.

A mass of substances worn off from solid bodies by attrition, and reduced to small portions; as, diluvial detritus.

To distribute or arrange methodically; to work over and classify; to reduce to portions for ready use or application; as, to digest the laws, etc. Joining them together and digesting them into order. Blair. We have cause to be glad that matters are so well digested. Shak.

The act of dilapidating, or the state of being dilapidated, reduced to decay, partially ruined, or squandered. Tell the people that are relived by the dilapidation of their public estate. Burke.

To diminish the strength, flavor, color, etc., of, by mixing; to reduce, especially by the addition of water; to temper; to attenuate; to weaken. Lest these colors should be diluted and weakened by the mixture of any adventitious light. Sir I. Newton.

Reduced in strength; thin; weak. -- Di*lut"ed*ly, adv.

Divided into two equal parts; reduced to half in shape or form.

To make smaller in any manner; to reduce in bulk or amount; to lessen; -- opposed to augment or increase. Not diminish, but rather increase, the debt. Barrow.

To reduce from the privileges of a forest to the state of common ground; to exempt from forest laws. By charter 9 Henry III. many forests were disafforested. Blackstone.