Sample Sentences for
degrade
grouped by contextual meaning
(editor-reviewed)

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
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    Haven't they used his pleasant vices as an instrument to degrade him?  (source)
    degrade = reduce dignity of
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    I felt so degraded; I cried like a baby.  (source)
    degraded = reduced in human dignity
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Show 10 more with 9 word variations
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    In places like Kwajalein, degradation could be as lethal as a bullet.  (source)
    degradation = reduction in 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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    He felt degraded.  (source)
    degraded = reduced in human dignity
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    Prisoners reported that they were still being beaten by correctional staff and subjected to humiliation in stockades and other degrading punishments.  (source)
    degrading = reducing in human 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)
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    He was thinking of Dr. King's speech to high school students in Washington, DC, when he spoke of the degradations of Jim Crow and the need to transform that degradation into action.†  (source)
    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.
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    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)
    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)
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    She was poor, moreover; degradingly poor.†  (source)
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    She read in his face that it had been a place of abasement, of degradation and despair.  (source)
    degradation = reduction of human dignity
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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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Show 10 more with 4 word variations
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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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    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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    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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    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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    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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