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degrade
in a sentence
grouped by contextual meaning

degrade as in:  her comments were degrading

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She was fired for social media postings that degraded her coworkers.
degraded = insulted or disrespected
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    She felt degraded when her ideas were mocked in front of the team.
    degraded = humiliated
  • •
    He felt degraded.  (source)
    degraded = reduced in human dignity
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    In prison camp, Watanabe had forced him to live in incomprehensible degradation and violence.  (source)
    degradation = reduced dignity
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  • •
    Suddenly I could stomach no more of this degradation—not of myself but of all men who were black like me.  (source)
    degradation = reduction of human dignity
    standard suffix: The suffix "-tion", converts a verb into a noun that denotes the action or result of the verb. Typically, there is a slight change in the ending of the root verb, as in action, education, and observation.
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    I felt so degraded as I stripped in front of the counselor during my in-processing, spread my butt cheeks before I showered, then put on the stale-smelling "county clothes."  (source)
    degraded = reduced in human dignity
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    I couldn't tell him that the reason I couldn't return to Cambridge was that being here threw into great relief every violent and degrading moment of my life.  (source)
    degrading = reducing dignity
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    We have experienced nearly everything that can wound the pride or degrade the character of an independent nation:  (source)
    degrade = reduce dignity of
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    Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.†  (source)
    degrades = reduces human dignity
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    Her only concern was to keep her wedding dress from being fouled by the degradations of her relatives and friends; but as she crossed the patio she slipped and every inch of her dress ended up coated with vomit.†  (source)
    degradations = reductions inhuman dignity
    standard suffix: The suffix "-tions", converts a verb into a plural noun that denotes results of the verb. Typically, there is a slight change in the ending of the root verb, as in actions, illustrations, and observations.
  • •
    COMPLEMENTAL VERSES The Pretensions of Poverty Thou dost presume too much, poor needy wretch, To claim a station in the firmament Because thy humble cottage, or thy tub, Nurses some lazy or pedantic virtue In the cheap sunshine or by shady springs, With roots and pot-herbs; where thy right hand, Tearing those humane passions from the mind, Upon whose stocks fair blooming virtues flourish, Degradeth nature, and benumbeth sense, And, Gorgon-like, turns active men to stone.†  (source)
    Degradeth = reduces human dignity
    standard suffix: Today, the suffix "-th" is replaced by "-s", so that where they said "She degradeth" in older English, today we say "She degrades."
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    All people knew (or thought they knew) that he had made himself immensely rich; and, for that reason alone, prostrated themselves before him, more degradedly and less excusably than the darkest savage creeps out of his hole in the ground to propitiate, in some log or reptile, the Deity of his benighted soul.†  (source)
    degradedly = in a manner that reduces human dignity
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    She was poor, moreover; degradingly poor.†  (source)
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    And probably more than four hundred and fifty billion has already been spent on saving the environment from degradation.†  (source)
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degrade as in:  degraded the quality

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The factory degrades local air quality.
degrades = decreases the quality of
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    Harsh chemicals can degrade the fabric, causing it to wear out faster.
    degrade = decrease the quality of
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    I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.  (source)
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    Over time, exposure to sunlight degraded the paint on the building’s exterior.
    degraded = decreased the quality of
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    Perhaps it's Werner's imagination, but each time he hears one of the programs, the quality seems to degrade a bit more, the sound growing fainter: as though the Frenchman broadcasts from a ship that is slowly traveling farther away.  (source)
    degrade = decrease in quality
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    Still, he implicitly believes that what Europe represents is degraded and decaying (and these are not the only examples).  (source)
    degraded = decreased in quality
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    Everywhere one looked the boundary between the moral and the wicked seemed to be degrading.  (source)
    degrading = decreasing
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    No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.  (source)
    degradation = decrease in quality
    standard suffix: The suffix "-tion", converts a verb into a noun that denotes the action or result of the verb. Typically, there is a slight change in the ending of the root verb, as in action, education, and observation.
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    It rises with increasing density, but at a certain point it peaks, begins to degrade, and eventually dies out.  (source)
    degrade = diminish (become less)
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    Olmsted's health degraded and insomnia again shattered his nights.  (source)
    degraded = grew worse
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    He and his brigade of architects, draftsmen, engineers, and contractors had accomplished so much in an impossibly short time, but apparently not enough to overcome the damping effect of the fast-degrading economy.  (source)
    degrading = getting worse
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    The fair buildings were complete and all exhibits were in place, but just as surely as silver tarnishes, the fair became subject to the inevitable forces of degradation and decline—and tragedy.  (source)
    degradation = decrease in quality
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    If everything went perfectly—if his health did not degrade any further, if the weather held, if Burnham completed the other buildings on time, if strikes did not destroy the fair, if the many committees and directors, which Olmsted called "that army our hundreds of masters," learned to leave Burnham alone—Olmsted might be able to complete his task on time.  (source)
    degrade = get worse
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    I wished we did not have to degrade the house with our modern jig-tunes, so out-of-place and unromantic.  (source)
    degrade = decrease the value of
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