MEANING
1. The process by which something loses quality, strength, usefulness, or a healthy condition.
2. Treatment or conditions that make a person feel humiliated, devalued, or deprived of dignity.
Use it for
describing deterioration rather than mere change; tracing declining environmental or material quality; distinguishing damage to a system from its complete destructionSeparates deterioration of quality from treatment that diminishes dignity. Academic functions: Change / Pattern / Trend.
Words that belong together
- environmental degradation
- land degradation
- degradation of materials
On the page
The report links land degradation to changes in land use.
Gradual degradation of the recording reduced the detail available for analysis.
The memoir presents arbitrary inspections as a form of degradation.
The essay distinguishes economic hardship from the additional degradation imposed by public shaming.
Nearby words
Word forms
- Base
- degradation
Usage notes
Usually uncountable. Degradations occurs for distinct instances or forms, especially technically. Register: formal. Commonness: moderately common (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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