debauch

“There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency,” John Maynard Keynes wrote in 1919 in “The Economic Consequences of the Peace.”

From New York Times ● Dec. 10, 2021

“I did really debauch myself to achieve a visual at the time” is how he remembers it.

From The New Yorker ● Sep. 15, 2016

We’ve not had a debasement of the currency, a debauch of the exchange rate, so those fears and warnings aren’t all that well founded.

From Forbes ● Feb. 13, 2015

Lastly, the Gabfest crew takes a look at Google’s new smartphone for your face, Google Glass: Will it extend our human powers or finally debauch them for good?

From Slate ● May 22, 2013

All the blood and lymph had been drained out of him by an enormous debauch of work, leaving only a frail structure of nerves, bones, and skin.

From "1984" by George Orwell

Huston filmed Sodom dimly lit, and shied clear of the debauches of DeMille's epics.

From Time Magazine Archive

Inflation, of course, debauches a currency by reducing its purchasing power.

From Time Magazine Archive

Other practically sure signs of neurosis: fear of not being able to draw a deep breath, burning in the abdomen, repeated belching, stomachaches after "emotional debauches," "distresses that come before breakfast."

From Time Magazine Archive

Good ideas are kept out of circulation because they are concealed by highbrow language, whereas lowbrow journalism debauches American speech.

From Time Magazine Archive

Nothing is a necessity that is wrong,—that debauches self-respect.

From Pushing to the Front by Orison Swett Marden

The dissolute, debauched Lucius might have proved a challenge for Marcus in the long run, but illness carried him off after eight years in power.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 11, 2026

As the manager of Guns N’ Roses during the band’s debauched heyday, Alan Niven has no shortage of colorful stories.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 23, 2025

The Hallmark Experience panel provided a window into filmmaking techniques and scriptwriting instead of prodding attendees to whoop it up at debauched moments caught on camera.

From Salon ● Dec. 23, 2023

It sees the capital's Playhouse Theatre transformed into the debauched Kit Kat Club of Weimar Berlin.

From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2023

Horrible, debauched, mouth limp and cracked, loose against the teeth as an ancient dog’s.

From "Grendel" by John Gardner

Germany, haunted by the experience of hyperinflation in 1923 and after World War Two, is deeply fearful of debauching the central bank by printing money to lend to governments.

From Reuters ● Nov. 28, 2011

The graver peril is that the precious-metals fever will sap more and more confidence in paper money, debauching its value.

From Time Magazine Archive

His novel is a grotesque, exciting and impudent tale of student ribaldry, army debauching and mystic romance.

From Time Magazine Archive

These are but a very few of the many instances of the debauching of every legislature in the United States.

From Great Fortunes from Railroads by Gustavus Myers

Our emasculated contemporary, not content with debauching Eatanswill politics, must go far afield and drag from his grave an obscure and feeble being whom he claims to make one of his besmirched heroes. 

From Pickwickian Studies by Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald