DEGRADATION • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Degradation

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/dˌɛgrədˈeɪʃən/ Listen

noun

Degradation n.

1.

The act of reducing in rank, character, or reputation, or of 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."

2.

The state of being reduced in rank, character, or reputation; baseness; moral, physical, or intellectual degeneracy; disgrace; abasement; debasement. "The... degradation of a needy man of letters." "Deplorable is the degradation of our nature." "Moments there frequently must be, when a sinner is sensible of the degradation of his state."

3.

Diminution or reduction of strength, efficacy, or value; degeneration; deterioration. "The development and degradation of the alphabetic forms can be traced."

4.

(Geol.) A gradual wearing down or wasting, as of rocks and banks, by the action of water, frost etc.

5.

(Biol.) The state or condition of a species or group which exhibits degraded forms; degeneration. "The degradation of the species man is observed in some of its varieties."

6.

(Physiol.) Arrest of development, or degeneration of any organ, or of the body as a whole.

Degradation of energy, or Dissipation of energy (Physics), the transformation of energy into some form in which it is less available for doing work.

Synonyms: Abasement; debasement; reduction; decline.

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Etymology of 'Degradation'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Degradation" Quotes from Famous Books

... eighteenth century, although it could boast of no names in any way comparable with those of Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, and Tasso, showed still a vast improvement on the degradation of the preceding century. Among the most famous writers of the times—Goldoni, Parini, Metastasio—none is so great or so famous as Vittorio Alfieri, the founder of Italian tragedy. The story of his life and of his literary activity, as told by himself in his memoirs, ...

— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... to apply the same principles to moral evil; indeed, he believes himself that moral evil becomes an evil through the physical evils that it causes or tends to cause. But somehow or other he thinks that it would be a degradation of God and men if they were to be made subject to reason; that thus they would all be rendered passive to it and would no longer be satisfied with themselves; in short that men would have nothing wherewith to oppose the misfortunes that come to them from without, if they had not ...

— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz

... Muller's whole system of mythology is based on reasoning analogous to this example. His mot d'ordre, as Professor Tiele says, is 'a disease of language.' This theory implies universal human degradation. Man was once, for all we know, rational enough; but his mysterious habit of using gender-terminations, and his perpetual misconceptions of the meaning of old words in his own language, reduced him to the irrational and often (as we now ...

— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang

... her? She was not in all the psalm, Hazel thought. Unlessyes, that might fit well enough: she might stand for "the wicked" in the eighth verse. For studying the shining words that went before, there had come to her a feeling of soil, a sense of degradation, all new, and ...

— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner

... a powerful analysis of those elements which go to make up the strength and weakness of a man, which are at fierce warfare within the same breast: contending against each other, as it were, the one to raise him to fame and power, the other to drag him down to degradation and shame. Never in the whole range of literature have we seen the struggle between these forces for supremacy over the man more powerfully, more realistically delineated, than Mr. Caine pictures it."—Boston ...

— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall

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