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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
demote
verb
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Dismiss, suspend, or demote all or any employees who participate in such strike or violation. 2.
▪ Her old scarf, purple rayon printed with black flowers, she would demote to second-best.
▪ It threatens to demote the Brussels institutions, especially the Commission, by setting up an alternative centre of decision-making.
▪ The aim of semantic processing is to demote word combinations that are not meaningful.
▪ The remarks followed the company's attempt to demote the men.
▪ The trouble with this manoeuvre is that it can not help but demote poetry.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Demote

Demote \De*mote"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Demoted; p. pr. & vb. n. Demoting.] [Pref. de- + mote, as in promote; cf. L. demovere to remove.] To reduce to a lower grade or rank, as in the military, one's employment, or in school; to assign to a lower position.

Syn: bump, relegate, kick downstairs, break one's rank.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
demote

1881, American English coinage from de- + stem of promote. Said to have been Midwestern in origin.\n\nRegarding an antithesis to 'promote,' the word universally in use in Cambridge, in Harvard College, is drop. The same word is in use in the leading schools here (Boston). I hope I may be counted every time against such barbarisms as 'demote' and 'retromote.'

[Edward Everett Hale, 1892, letter to the publishers of "Funk & Wagnalls' Standard Dictionary"]

\nRelated: Demoted; demoting.
Wiktionary
demote

vb. 1 (context transitive English) To lower the rank or status of something. 2 (context transitive English) To relegate.

WordNet
demote

v. assign to a lower position; reduce in rank; "She was demoted because she always speaks up"; "He was broken down to Sargeant" [syn: bump, relegate, break, kick downstairs] [ant: promote]

Usage examples of "demote".

Each time he is certain that his actions have demoted him to a new and permanent sublevel of paternal disregard.

Rod recognized him—the King's elder brother Anselm, attainted for treason, demoted to the rank of squire, and doomed to live out his life in obscurity.

These levelling times remain unfair, and commonise, demote, in such a civilised, cultivated countryside, what should be free from vulgar threat.

In the hubbub surrounding twelve-year-old Jake Ferguson, whose pornographic comic book business had turned the morally constipating experience of Scout camp into a lucrative and horizon-broadening enterprise, I was demoted to lesser-evil status.

If Colonel I was countermanding orders then it gave him the opportunity to break the man - to demote him and humiliate him.

Did she further sense that contemporary circumstances were demoting or declassing the poets, reducing their size, reducing their reach?

Now Baz was demoted, Tung apparently disgraced—what position in the mercenary fleet did Elena hold now?

It was at this point that he was demoted to the front legs of the donkey.

But he was so distracted by the sight of Kitty in the green dress he'd bought her that he totally ignored Rachel's repeated nods and was demoted to shifting scenery.

Or does he know I know what went on and that's why he got me in trouble, demoted, relocated, and all that?

When he had been demoted, Buck had considered the relocation from New York to Chicago a positive turn—he would get to see more of her, he'd be in a good church, get good training, have a core of friends.

When he had been demoted, Buck had considered the relocation from New York to Chicago a positive turn-he would get to see more of her, he'd be in a good church, get good training, have a core of friends.

That demoted the former closing act, Captain Hotspur and Madame Solitaire, to next-to-close.

Would you feel you had been demoted or rebuffed if I hired the Jászi brothers to replace you in the voltige?

True, the venerable Maximus seemed a little downcast at having been demoted from performer to prop, but he seemed almost grateful for his work having been eased without removing him from the pista, where he could still enjoy attention and applause, so he took his semiretirement graciously enough.