Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To undermine the confidence or morale of; dishearten.
  • transitive verb To put into disorder; confuse.
  • transitive verb To debase the morals of; corrupt.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To corrupt or undermine the morals of; weaken or destroy the effect of moral principles on.
  • To deprive of spirit or energy; dishearten; destroy the courage, confidence, or hope of; render incapable of brave or energetic effort: specifically used in relation to troops: as, the charge of our cavalry completely demoralized the enemy's left wing.
  • To throw into confusion in general; bring into disorder; confuse mentally: as, he was badly demoralized by fright.
  • Also spelled demoralise.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To corrupt or undermine in morals; to destroy or lessen the effect of moral principles on; to render corrupt or untrustworthy in morals, in discipline, in courage, spirit, etc.; to weaken in spirit or efficiency.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb American To destroy morale; to dishearten.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb corrupt morally or by intemperance or sensuality
  • verb lower someone's spirits; make downhearted
  • verb confuse or put into disorder

Etymologies

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