- abase
- abase, demean, debase, degrade, humble, humiliate are synonymous when they denote to lower in one’s own estimation or in that of others.Abase suggests loss of dignity or prestige without necessarily implying permanency in that loss. When used reflexively it connotes humility, abjectness, or a sense of one’s inferiority; in this reflexive use humble is often used interchangeably{
whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased [DV and RV humbled]; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted— Lk 14:11
}Demean implies less humility than abase but is stronger in its implications of loss of dignity or social standing{it was . . . Mrs. Sedley’s opinion that her son would demean himself by a marriage with an artist’s daughter— Thackeray
}Debase emphasizes deterioration in value or quality: it is more often used of things{debase the currency
}but when used of persons it commonly connotes weakening of moral standards or of the moral character{officeholders debase themselves by accepting bribes
}{struggle with Hannibal had debased the Roman temper— Buchan
}Degrade stresses a lowering in plane rather than in rank and often conveys a strong implication of the shamefulness of the condition to which someone or something has been reduced{that she and Charlotte, two spent old women, should be . . . talking to each other of hatred, seemed unimaginably hideous and degrading— Wharton
}Often (especially in degradation) it connotes actual degeneracy or corruption{it was by that unscrupulous person’s liquor her husband had been degraded— Hardy
}Humble is frequently used in place of degrade in the sense of demote when the ignominy of the reduction in rank is emphasized{we are pleased . . . to see him taken down and humbled— Spectator
}When it is employed without any implication of demotion, it often suggests a salutary increase of humility or the realization of one’s own littleness or impotence{it was one of those illnesses from which we turn away our eyes, shuddering and humbled— Deland
}Occasionally it implies a lowering in station{in such a man . . . a race illustrious for heroic deeds, humbled, but not degraded, may expire— Wordsworth
}Humiliate, once a close synonym of humble, now comes closer to mortify, for it stresses chagrin and shame{when we ask to be humbled, we must not recoil from being humiliated— Rossetti
}Analogous words: cringe, truckle, cower, *fawn, toady: grovel (see WALLOW): abash, discomfit, disconcert, *embarrass: mortify (see corresponding adjective at ASHAMED)Antonyms: exalt: extol (especially oneself)
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
