Demeaning

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Demean \De*mean"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Demeaned}; p. pr. & vb.
     n. {Demeaning}.] [OF. demener to conduct, guide, manage, F.
     se d['e]mener to struggle; pref. d['e]- (L. de) + mener to
     lead, drive, carry on, conduct, fr. L. minare to drive
     animals by threatening cries, fr. minari to threaten. See
     {Menace}.]


     1. To manage; to conduct; to treat.
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              [Our] clergy have with violence demeaned the matter.
                                                    --Milton.
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     2. To conduct; to behave; to comport; -- followed by the
        reflexive pronoun.
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              They have demeaned themselves
              Like men born to renown by life or death. --Shak.
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              They answered . . . that they should demean
              themselves according to their instructions.
                                                    --Clarendon.
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     3. To debase; to lower; to degrade; -- followed by the
        reflexive pronoun.
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              Her son would demean himself by a marriage with an
              artist's daughter.                    --Thackeray.
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     Note: This sense is probably due to a false etymology which
           regarded the word as connected with the adjective mean.
           [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  demeaning
       adj : causing awareness of your shortcomings; "golf is a humbling
             game" [syn: {humbling}, {humiliating}, {mortifying}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  49 Moby Thesaurus words for "demeaning":
     beneath one, cheap, common, debasing, degrading, deplorable,
     disadvantaged, disgraceful, gutter, humble, humiliating,
     humiliative, in the shade, inferior, infra dig, infra indignitatem,
     junior, less, lesser, low, lower, lowly, minor, modest,
     opprobrious, ordinary, outrageous, pitiful, sad, scandalous,
     second rank, second string, secondary, servile, shameful, shocking,
     sorry, sub, subaltern, subject, subordinate, subservient,
     third rank, third string, too bad, unbecoming, underprivileged,
     unworthy of one, vulgar