DEBASEMENT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does debasement mean? 

• DEBASEMENT (noun)
  The noun DEBASEMENT has 2 senses:

1. being mixed with extraneous material; the product of adulterating

2. changing to a lower state (a less respected state)

  Familiarity information: DEBASEMENT used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DEBASEMENT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Being mixed with extraneous material; the product of adulterating

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

adulteration; debasement

Hypernyms ("debasement" is a kind of...):

impureness; impurity (the condition of being impure)

Derivation:

debase (corrupt, debase, or make impure by adding a foreign or inferior substance; often by replacing valuable ingredients with inferior ones)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Changing to a lower state (a less respected state)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

debasement; degradation

Hypernyms ("debasement" is a kind of...):

change of state (the act of changing something into something different in essential characteristics)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "debasement"):

dehumanisation; dehumanization (the act of degrading people with respect to their best qualities)

animalisation; animalization; brutalisation; brutalization (an act that makes people cruel or lacking normal human qualities)

barbarisation; barbarization (an act that makes people primitive and uncivilized)

bastardisation; bastardization (an act that debases or corrupts)

corruption; subversion (destroying someone's (or some group's) honesty or loyalty; undermining moral integrity)

demoralisation; demoralization (destroying the moral basis for a doctrine or policy)

constipation; deadening; impairment; stultification (the act of making something futile and useless (as by routine))

popularisation; popularization; vulgarisation; vulgarization (the act of making something attractive to the general public)

profanation (degradation of something worthy of respect; cheapening)

abasement; humiliation (depriving one of self-esteem)

vulgarisation; vulgarization (the act of rendering something coarse and unrefined)

Derivation:

debase (corrupt morally or by intemperance or sensuality)

 Context examples 

Such a debasement on his!

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

To be disgraced in the eye of the world, to wear the appearance of infamy while her heart is all purity, her actions all innocence, and the misconduct of another the true source of her debasement, is one of those circumstances which peculiarly belong to the heroine's life, and her fortitude under it what particularly dignifies her character.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain,—the impalpable principle of light and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence it came it will return; perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than man—perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph!

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)