Crossword clues for degradation
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Degradation \Deg`ra*da"tion\, n. [LL. degradatio, from degradare: cf. F. d['e]gradation. See Degrade.]
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The act of reducing in rank, character, or reputation, or of abasing; a lowering from one's standing or rank in office or society; diminution; as, the degradation of a peer, a knight, a general, or a bishop.
He saw many removes and degradations in all the other offices of which he had been possessed.
--Clarendon. -
The state of being reduced in rank, character, or reputation; baseness; moral, physical, or intellectual degeneracy; disgrace; abasement; debasement.
The . . . degradation of a needy man of letters.
--Macaulay.Deplorable is the degradation of our nature.
--South.Moments there frequently must be, when a sinner is sensible of the degradation of his state.
--Blair. -
Diminution or reduction of strength, efficacy, or value; degeneration; deterioration.
The development and degradation of the alphabetic forms can be traced.
--I. Taylor (The Alphabet). (Geol.) A gradual wearing down or wasting, as of rocks and banks, by the action of water, frost etc.
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(Biol.) The state or condition of a species or group which exhibits degraded forms; degeneration.
The degradation of the species man is observed in some of its varieties.
--Dana. -
(Physiol.) Arrest of development, or degeneration of any organ, or of the body as a whole.
Degradation of energy, or Dissipation of energy (Physics), the transformation of energy into some form in which it is less available for doing work.
Syn: Abasement; debasement; reduction; decline.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1530s, from French dégradation (14c., Old French degradacion), from Medieval Latin degradationem (nominative degradatio), noun of action from past participle stem of degradare (see degrade).
Wiktionary
n. 1 The act of reducing in rank, character, or reputation, or of abasing; a lowering from one's standing or rank in office or society; diminution; as, the degradation of a peer, a knight, a general, or a bishop. 2 The state of being reduced in rank, character, or reputation; baseness; moral, physical, or intellectual degeneracy; disgrace; abasement; debasement. 3 Diminution or reduction of strength, efficacy, or value; degeneration; deterioration. 4 (context geology English) A gradual wearing down or wasting, as of rocks and banks, by the action of water, frost etc. 5 A deleterious change in the chemical structure, physical properties or appearance of a material from natural or artificial exposure. 6 The state or condition of a species or group which exhibits degraded forms; degeneration. 7 Arrest of development, or degeneration of any organ, or of the body as a whole. 8 The gradual breakdown of components of a material, as a result of a natural element, i.e.: heat, cold and wind.
WordNet
n. changing to a lower state (a less respected state) [syn: debasement]
a low or downcast state; "each confession brought her into an attitude of abasement"- H.L.Menchken [syn: abasement, abjection]
Wikipedia
Degradation may refer to:
- Biodegradation of organic substances by living organisms
- Cashiering, whereby a military officer is dismissed for misconduct
- Reduction in rank, whereby a military officer is reduced to a lower rank for misconduct
- Degradation (geology)
- Environmental degradation in ecology
- "Degradation", a song by the Violent Femmes, from Add It Up (1981–1993)
- Degradation (telecommunications), of an electronic signal
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Elegant degradation, gradual rather than sudden
- Graceful degradation, in a fault-tolerant system
- Polymer degradation as plastics age
In telecommunication, degradation, is the loss of quality of an electronic signal, which may be categorized as either " graceful" or "catastrophic", and has the following meanings:
- The deterioration in quality, level, or standard of performance of a functional unit.
- In communications, a condition in which one or more of the required performance parameters fall outside predetermined limits, resulting in a lower quality of service.
There are several forms and causes of degradation in electric signals, both in the time domain and in the physical domain, including runt pulse, voltage spike, jitter, wander, swim, drift, glitch, ringing, crosstalk, antenna effect (not the same antenna effect as in IC manufacturing), and phase noise.
Degradation usually refers to reduction in quality of an analog or digital signal. When a signal is being transmitted or received, it undergoes changes which are undesirable. These changes are called degradation. Degradation is usually caused by:
- Weather or environmental conditions.
- Terrain
- Other signals.
- Faulty or poor quality equipment.
In geology, degradation refers to the lowering of a fluvial surface, such as a stream bed or floodplain, through erosional processes. It is the opposite of aggradation. Degradation is characteristic of channel networks in which either bedrock erosion is taking place, or in systems that are sediment-starved and are therefore entraining more material than is being deposited. When a stream degrades, it leaves behind a fluvial terrace. This can be further classified as a strath terrace—a bedrock terrace that may have a thin mantle of alluvium—if the river is incising through bedrock. These terraces may often be dated with methods such as cosmogenic radionuclide dating, OSL dating, and paleomagnetic dating (using reversals in the Earth's magnetic field to constrain the timing of events) to find when a river was at a particular level and how quickly it is downcutting.
Usage examples of "degradation".
FELLOW-CITIZENS:--When the General Assembly, now about adjourning, assembled in November last, from the bankrupt state of the public treasury, the pecuniary embarrassments prevailing in every department of society, the dilapidated state of the public works, and the impending danger of the degradation of the State, you had a right to expect that your representatives would lose no time in devising and adopting measures to avert threatened calamities, alleviate the distresses of the people, and allay the fearful apprehensions in regard to the future prosperity of the State.
After a few moments of calm, thinking I should take him by surprise, I extended my hand, but I drew back terrified, for I fancied that I had recognized in him a man, and a degraded man, contemptible less on account of his degradation than for the want of feeling I thought I could read on his countenance.
If they could feel their own degradation, they would be much to be pitied, for by their own fault at last no one will believe them even when by chance they speak the truth.
My erotic inconvenience made me very uncomfortable, my mind felt deeply the consciousness of my degradation, and I did not possess a groat!
My landlord did the honours of the table, and thought it no degradation to make his guests pay for the meal.
It was designed to keep him from being murdered in a public cell where drunkenness, fornication, starvation and every form of despair and degradation did not preclude a peculiar loyalty to the King of England.
In this latter case, as long as the rate of subsidence and supply of sediment nearly balance each other, the sea will remain shallow and favourable for life, and thus a fossiliferous formation thick enough, when upraised, to resist any amount of degradation, may be formed.
My readers must not forget that in Portici I was on the point of disgracing myself, and there is no remedy against the degradation of the mind, for nothing can restore it to its former standard.
Self-pollution, or onanism, is one of the most prolific sources of evil, since it leads both to the degradation of body and mind.
Instantly, I was sure this was some client, and that her shame and degradation was now so great she had taken to plying her trade in her own house, for all to see.
Only when intensive degradation of new materials is required do we make use of a hot sylvinite solution to which magnesium bromide is added.
After fourteen stormy years the two friends, who more than any others were responsible for the launching of the Third Retch, for its terror and its degradation, who though they had often disagreed had stood together in the moments of crisis and defeats and disappointments, had come to a parting of the ways, and the scar-faced, brawling battler for Hitler and Nazism had come to the end of his violent life.
I can scarcely bear to review the times to which I allude: the moral degradation, blent with the physical suffering, form too distressing a recollection ever to be willingly dwelt on.
These figures are for arable land and do not include the general erosion and degradation of lands all over the earth from human activities such as deforestation, overgrazing, fire, and other injudicious human occupancy.
I, your author, ventured from the fertile climes of our glorious state in the forty-third year of this century to perform my duties as an American in the South Pacific, and will carry to my grave the scenes of cruelty and human degradation I witnessed there, in surroundings as paradisaical as any this globe can offer.