Thesaurus.com
Dictionary.com
Showing results for debase. Search instead for codebase.
Definitions

debase

[dih-bays] / dɪˈbeɪs /




Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

That trade is based on the view that investors will turn to alternative assets like gold or bitcoin on worries that stubborn government deficits and higher inflation will debase currencies like the dollar.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 27, 2026

His motives are obvious: He’s a bully and it’s fun for him to watch people debase themselves to please him.

From Salon ● Apr. 3, 2026

These stories tell us that Diogenes was chased out of his native Sinope, on the north coast of what’s now Turkey, for his supposed role in a scheme to debase the city’s currency.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 17, 2025

“You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that,” Trump said, then he proceeded to debase a journalist who wasn’t there to report on the event because he’d been silenced, forever.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 20, 2025

Once, though, I heard Rita say to Cora that she wouldn’t debase herself like that.

From "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood

One weak point is the film’s overbearing musical score, by Kadmon, which debases events by giving them the feel of low-budget action filmmaking.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 29, 2026

And that vision, that fight, in the midst of everything that degrades and debases you, you pull upon community, you pull upon cultural power, you pull upon your spirituality, and you pull upon hope.

From Slate ● Oct. 6, 2020

Said corporation's very wealthy owner insults the court and her client, then debases Julius himself after the judge has the man jailed for contempt, which he is well within his rights to do.

From Salon ● May 14, 2020

Art museum membership is usually pitched as a way to get admission discounts, which debases the museum enterprise as a mere commercial transaction.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 12, 2019

It is so simple a fact and one that is so hard, apparently, to grasp: Whoever debases others is debasing himself.

From "The Fire Next Time" by James Baldwin

A currency is never debased in the hearing.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 15, 2026

Whereas the European gothic, he concludes, was “an enlightened attack on a debased ruling class or entrenched superstition,” its American version emerged as “a Calvinist exposé of natural human corruption.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026

The very concepts of intellectualism, and of objective knowledge itself, have been debased by a kind of Gresham’s Law, with the bad driving out the good.

From Salon ● Apr. 19, 2026

Scottish National Party MP John Nicolson said the post was "nauseating" and that it "cheapened and debased" politics.

From BBC ● Apr. 9, 2023

Working as a lawyer in South Africa meant operating under a debased system of justice, a code of law that did not enshrine equality but its opposite.

From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela

Robbie’s most deliciously debasing scene is when she throws coins on the ground for a desperate beggar — and then that person forces her to watch as he picks them up.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 11, 2026

Argentina has a history of debasing its currency, which is why its people keep billions of dollars in coffee cans, home safes and mattresses.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 12, 2025

Dismissing the case, Mr Justice Chamberlain said Yaxley-Lennon's own barrister had accepted there was no evidence his client had been segregated "for the purpose of breaking his resistance or humiliating or debasing him".

From BBC ● Mar. 21, 2025

How debasing it feels to beg for that macaroni noodle.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 1, 2022

It is so simple a fact and one that is so hard, apparently, to grasp: Whoever debases others is debasing himself.

From "The Fire Next Time" by James Baldwin


Vocabulary lists containing debase

Random Word

Spin the wheel and learn a new word!

Get a word

Vocabulary.com logo
by dictionary.com

Just like flashcards, but way more fun

Don't take our word for it. Leave the boring studying behind and join VocabTrainer today. You'll learn even faster and never look back.

Take me to Vocabulary.com