Search the Dictionary

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 degrading one's self, or the state of being so degraded.

A low or downcast state; meanness of spirit; abasement; degradation. That this should be termed baseness, abjection of mind, or servility, is it credible Hooker.

Injury; degradation; ruin. [Obs.] You might wrest the caduceus out of my hand to the adultery and spoil of nature. B. Jonson.

lements. This doctrine forbids concubinage and polygamy, and frees women from many of the degradations imposed upon them among the orthodox Mohammedans. Mendicancy, the use of intoxicating liquors and drugs, and slave dealing, are forbidden; asceticism is discountenanced. --Bab"ist, n.

The quality or condition of being base; degradation; vileness. I once did hold it a baseness to write fair. Shak.

supriors. -- Canonical punishments, such as the church may inflict, as excommunication, degradation, penance, etc. -- Canonical sins (Anc. Church.), those for which capital punishment or puplic penance decreed by the canon was inflicted, as idolatry, murder, adultery, heresy.

The act or state of growing worse, or the state of having become worse; decline; degradation; debasement; degeneracy; deterioration. Our degeneration and apostasy. Bates.

A believer in the theory of degeneration, or hereditary degradation of type; as, the degenerationists hold that savagery is the result of degeneration from a superior state.

Deprivation of rank or office; degradation. [R.] Milton.

The act of going downward; descent; falling or sinking; declension; degradation. Oblique descension (Astron.), the degree or arc of the equator which descends, with a celestial object, below the horizon of an oblique sphere. -- Right descension, the degree or arc of the equator which descends below the horizon of a ri…

ty or consideration, or the state of being deprived of dignity; a lowering in estimation; degradation; abasement. The world's opinion or diminution of me. Eikon Basilike. Nor thinks it diminution to be ranked In military honor next. Philips.

Degradation; a stripping of titles and honors.

disparagement to a star that it is not the sun. South. Imitation is a disparagement and a degradation in a Christian minister. I. Taylor.

he letters] a thousand avocations and dissipations. Swift. Dissipation of energy. Same as Degradation of energy, under Degradation.

Downfall; degradation; loss of greatness or office; termination of greatness, power, or dominion; ruin; overthrow; as, the fall of the Roman empire. Beholds thee glorious only in thy fall. Pope.

The act of depriving, or taking away; hence, the depriving of rank or office; degradation in rank; deprivation. Bacon.

retreat; as, the recess of the tides. Every degree of ignorance being so far a recess and degradation from rationality. South. My recess hath given them confidence that I may be conquered. Eikon Basilike.

Degradation of one's self by one's own act.

One sunk in vice or degradation; a base, despicable person; a vile knave; as, a profligate wretch.