DETRACT • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Detract

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/dɪtrˈækt/ Listen

verb

Detract v. t. (past & past part. detracted; pres. part. detracting)

To take away; to withdraw. "Detract much from the view of the without."

To take credit or reputation from; to defame. "That calumnious critic... Detracting what laboriously we do."

Synonyms: To derogate; decry; disparage; depreciate; asperse; vilify; defame; traduce. See Decry.

Detract v. i. To take away a part or something, especially from one's credit; to lessen reputation; to derogate; to defame; often with from. "It has been the fashion to detract both from the moral and literary character of Cicero."

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Etymology of 'Detract'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Detract" Quotes from Famous Books

... be dwarfed nor magnified by the contiguity of any discordant objects. It will stand alone. The abstract idea, as has been said, is noble. The plan of utilizing the statue as a lighthouse at night does not detract from its worth in this respect; it may be said to even emphasize the allegorial sense of the work. "Liberty enlightening the world," lights the way of the sailor in the crowded harbor of the second commercial ...

— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 • Various

... detailed some particulars of this venerable personage, whom he also met with a few months after Marsden had seen him, which grievously detract from his character for sanctity. He made the voyage with them in the "Dromedary" from the Bay of Islands to the mouth of the Shukehanga, but announced his intention of leaving them the ...

— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik

... might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us ...

— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... Bouhours[271], who shews all beauty to depend on truth. There is no great merit in telling how many plays have ghosts in them, and how this Ghost is better than that. You must shew how terrour is impressed on the human heart. In the description of night in Macbeth[272], the beetle and the bat detract from the general idea of ...

— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... there will be no chance for an alarm until we are steaming off from the station—and then we can laugh. If we strike any unscheduled trains, they too will be to our advantage; for they will make such confusion on the road that they will detract attention from the rather suspicious appearance of our ...

— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins

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