Condescend vs Abase - What's the difference?
condescend | abase |
(lb) To come down from one's superior position; to deign (to do something).
*1665 , (John Dryden), (The Indian Emperour) , act 1, sc.2:
*:Spain's mighty monarch/ In gracious clemency, does condescend / On these conditions, to become your friend.
*1847 , (Anne Bronte),
*:Fanny and little Harriet he seldom condescended to notice; but Mary Ann was something of a favourite.
(lb) To treat (someone) as though inferior; to be patronizing (toward someone); to talk down (to someone).
*1861 , (Charles Dickens), (Great Expectations) , Ch.29:
*:"You must know," said Estella, condescending to me as a brilliant and beautiful woman might, "that I have no heart."
*1880 , ,
*:Ermine never let any one be condescending to her, and conducted the conversation with her usual graceful good breeding.
*
*:At her invitation he outlined for her the succeeding chapters with terse military accuracy?; and what she liked best and best understood was avoidance of that false modesty which condescends , turning technicality into pabulum.
To consent, agree.
*1671 , (John Milton), (Samson Agonistes) , lines 1134-36:
*:Can they think me so broken, so debased / With corporal servitude, that my mind ever / Will condescend to such absurd commands?
*1868 , (Horatio Alger),
*:"This is the pay I get for condescending to let you go with me."
To come down.
(archaic) To lower physically or depress; to stoop; to throw or cast down; as, to abase the eye.
To lower, as in rank, office, condition in life, so as to hurt feelings or cause pain; to depress; to humiliate; to humble; to degrade.
(obsolete) To lower in value, in particular as altering the content of alloys in coins.
As verbs the difference between condescend and abase
is that condescend is (lb) to come down from one's superior position; to deign (to do something) while abase is (archaic) to lower physically or depress; to stoop; to throw or cast down; as, to abase the eye .condescend
English
Verb
(en verb)Agnes Grey, Ch.5:
Clever Woman of the Family, Ch.7:
Struggling Upward, Ch.3:
Usage notes
* This is a catenative verb that takes the to infinitive . See * In sense “to talk down”, the derived participial adjective condescending (and corresponding adverb condescendingly) are more common than the verb itself.Synonyms
* (come down from superior position) acquiesce, deign, stoop, vouchsafe * patronize, put on airs * (consent) yield * (come down) descendExternal links
* *abase
English
Verb
(abas)- "Saying so, he abased his lance''." - ''
- "Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased'' ." - ''Luke 14:11
