From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishdegradede‧grade /dɪˈɡreɪd/ verb 1 [transitive]INSULT to treat someone without respect and make them lose respect for themselves a movie that degrades womendegrade yourself (by doing something) How can you degrade yourself by writing such trash?2 [transitive]WORSE to make a situation or the condition of something worse The dolphin’s habitat is being rapidly degraded.3 [intransitive, transitive]HC technical if a substance, chemical etc degrades, or if something degrades it, it changes to a simpler form —degradable adjective→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
degrade• An area several times as large is suffering a decline in productivity as it is degraded by overuse.• They can all help us in understanding conduct which seems to degrade humanity.• It honed in on the prototypical shape that was behind all the degraded images.• If sulphur hexafluoride is subjected to electrical sparking in the presence of oxygen, it degrades, releasing toxic breakdown products.• Don't leave your tent pitched all day for a prolonged period - this will degrade the flysheet.• Erosion is degrading the land.• Black plastic starts to degrade upon exposure to sunlight.• Winters says he never intended to degrade women in his movies.• Adam Smith thought that specialization had the potential to degrade workers, too.degrade yourself (by doing something)• But when a Duchess descends to mingle with a person of obscure birth, does she not then degrade herself?• Out of some sort of desperation she seemed to want to degrade herself.• Leapor sees such a woman degrading herself as a miser: Then let her quit Extravagance and Play.• You despise me - so aren't you degrading yourself by having anything to do with me? 