In thermodynamics, to convert from a form of greater to one of less availability: said of certain transformations of energy.
To reduce from a higher to a lower rank, degree, or type. Specifically
To deprive of any office or dignity; strip of honors: as, to degrade a general officer.
To lower in character; cause to deteriorate; lessen the value or worth of; debase: as, drunkenness degrades a man to the level of a beast.
In biology: To reduce in taxonomic rank; lower in the scale of classification: as, to degrade an order to the rank of a family.
To reduce in complexity of structure or function; simplify morphologically or physiologically: as, an organism degraded by parasitic habit.
In geology, to reduce in altitude or magnitude, as hills and mountains or icebergs; wear down, as by the weather.
In optics, to lower in position in the spectrum; increase the wave-length of (a ray of light), and hence diminish (its) refrangibility, as by the action of a fluorescent substance. See fluorescence.
To diminish the strength, purity, size, etc., of.
Synonyms and Debase, Disgrace, etc. (see abase); to dishonor, break, cashier, reduce to inferior rank. To lower, sink, impair, injure, pervert, pollute. See list under debase.
In natural history, to degenerate in type; pass from a higher type of structure to a lower.
To degenerate; become lower in character; deteriorate.
In a university, to take, for some particular reason, a lower degree than one is entitled to, or to avoid taking a degree at the proper or usual time; descend from a higher to a lower degree.