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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.

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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

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

I knew he was trying to be menacing, but I didn’t feel fear so much as astonishment at the way this adult was willing to debase himself to ruin our night.

From Slate ● Feb. 10, 2025

As the string score starts having palpitations, “Babygirl” threatens to debase itself by becoming a throwback thriller.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 24, 2024

Just because the world was unjust didn’t mean that I must debase myself as well.

From "The City Beautiful" by Aden Polydoros

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

He added that such vocabulary "debases America itself".

From BBC ● Feb. 22, 2024

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

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

At a time when even the greatest achievements are debased in a culture that gives equal weight to meritricious novelty, is it even worth the trouble?

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 8, 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

Everest, the purists sniffed, had been debased and profaned.

From "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer

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

Institutions, acting in their own interest, are debasing America’s pool of young, human capital.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 30, 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

And I just remember being like, “Oh my God. I feel so bad for debasing you.”

From Washington Post ● Sep. 20, 2022

For a moment my soul was elevated from its debasing and miserable fears to contemplate the divine ideas of liberty and self-sacrifice of which these sights were the monuments and the remembrancers.

From "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley


Vocabulary lists containing debase

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