Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- Reduced in quality or state; lowered in purity or fineness; adulterated.
- Lowered morally; degraded; despicable.
- In heraldry, reversed.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective (Her.) Turned upside down from its proper position; inverted; reversed.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb Simple past tense and past participle of
debase .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective mixed with impurities
- adjective lowered in value
- adjective ruined in character or quality
Etymologies
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Examples
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"Just when you thought he couldn't get any lower, Carl once again debased himself and the entire political process," a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, Josh Vlasto, said.
Cuomo Turns Tables on Paladino Jacob Gershman 2010
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How debased is the public discourse when Donald Trump is the voice of reason?
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Note, It is just with God to debase those by his judgments who have by sin debased themselves.
Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume IV (Isaiah to Malachi) 1721
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It was far debased from the English she had learned in Cairo during the last century.
Lilith’s Dream: A Tale of the Vampire Life Whitley Strieber 2002
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One of the tests for someone or something to qualify as an icon—a term so debased by overuse that it needs to be sparingly applied—should be the fifty-year rule.
All The Available Light Yona Zeldis McDonough 2002
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It was far debased from the English she had learned in Cairo during the last century.
Lilith’s Dream: A Tale of the Vampire Life Whitley Strieber 2002
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One of the tests for someone or something to qualify as an icon—a term so debased by overuse that it needs to be sparingly applied—should be the fifty-year rule.
All The Available Light Yona Zeldis McDonough 2002
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He had the sultani gold coins debased and reduced in size in response to increased competition with multinational currencies in the Mediterranean.
1682, April 10 2001
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I find that in 1631 our house of burgesses desired of the privy council in England, a coin debased to twenty-five per cent.; that in 1645 they forbid dealing by barter for tobacco, and established the Spanish piece of eight at six shillings, as the standard of their currency; that in 1655 they changed it to five shillings sterling.
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The unbidden guests examine a row of family portraits, but are too dull to recognize them as men and women, beneath the disguise of a preposterous garb, and with features and expression debased, because inherited through ages of moral and physical decay.
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