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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

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

“His trust! That—that—man . . .” He deserved to be called worse, but in the wood-paneled office, I couldn’t debase myself to use the words that were on the tip of my tongue.

From "The Red Car to Hollywood" by Jennie Liu

"This type of exploitative broadcasting - that debases human dignity- will taint the honor of the military that employs it, and a nation that allows it," they also wrote.

From BBC ● Oct. 15, 2026

In order to emerge victorious in his quest to bring the World Cup to Mexico, De la Torre debases himself and backstabs shamelessly.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 4, 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

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

There will be a new ball this season, the Nike Flight, which is "built with Aerowsculpt technology with grooves debased into the casing, to allow air to travel seamlessly around the ball, delivering truer flight".

From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2024

I’ve been debased through my association with you.

From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole

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

The late Roman Empire undermined its commercial economy through centralization, regulation and debasing the currency.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 29, 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

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


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