MEANING
1. To reduce the value, importance, or respect given to someone or something.
2. To lower a currency’s value in relation to another currency or an established exchange standard.
Use it for
describing work treated as less important; showing a contribution being undervalued; analyzing a loss of social esteem; distinguishing reduced perceived worth from physical deteriorationSeparates lowering perceived worth from changing a currency’s exchange value; neither is identical to physically damaging something. Writing functions: Evaluation / Significance, Change / Pattern / Trend.
Words that belong together
- devalue unpaid work
- devalue a contribution
- devalue expertise
On the page
The ranking system may devalue forms of care that are not easily counted.
The narrator repeatedly devalues her own achievements while praising the same work in others.
The government devalued the currency before announcing the new trade measures.
The analysis asks who gains and who loses when a currency is devalued.
Word forms
- Base
- devalue
- Past tense
- devalued
- Past participle
- devalued
- Present participle
- devaluing
Full tense & aspect guide
- Present
- devalue
- Present continuous
- am/is/are devaluing
- Present perfect
- have/has devalued
- Present perfect continuous
- have/has been devaluing
- Past
- devalued
- Past continuous
- was/were devaluing
- Past perfect
- had devalued
- Past perfect continuous
- had been devaluing
- Future
- will devalue
- Future continuous
- will be devaluing
- Future perfect
- will have devalued
- Future perfect continuous
- will have been devaluing
Choose the auxiliary that agrees with your subject. These are constructions of one word, not separate entries.
Usage notes
Verb: devalue; devalues; devalued; devalued; devaluing. Future: will devalue. General use is usually transitive; currency use can be transitive or intransitive. Register: neutral. Commonness: moderately common (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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