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Decry vs Demean - What's the difference?

decry | demean |

As verbs the difference between decry and demean

is that decry is to denounce as harmful while demean is to debase; to lower; to degrade or demean can be to manage; to conduct; to treat.

As a noun demean is

(archaic) management; treatment or demean can be demesne.

decry

English

Verb

(en-verb)
  • To denounce as harmful.
  • * 1970 , Alvin Toffler, Future Shock'', ''Bantam Books , pg. 99:
  • All of us seem to need some totalistic relationships in our lives. But to decry the fact that we cannot have only such relationships is nonsense.
  • * 1970 , Alvin Toffler, Future Shock'', ''Bantam Books , pg. 474:
  • While decrying bureaucracy and demanding participatory democracy they, themselves, frequently attempt to manipulate the very group of workers, blacks or students on whose behalf they demand participation.
  • To blame for ills.
  • References

    * Chambers's Etymological Dictionary , 1896, p. 114 * * *

    Anagrams

    *

    demean

    English

    Etymology 1

    (1595) From . Compare English (m).

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To debase; to lower; to degrade.
  • * Thackeray
  • Her son would demean himself by a marriage with an artist's daughter.
  • To humble, humble oneself; to humiliate.
  • To mortify.
  • Synonyms
    * debase * lower * degrade

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) .

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To manage; to conduct; to treat.
  • * Milton
  • [Our] clergy have with violence demeaned the matter.
  • To conduct; to behave; to comport; followed by the reflexive pronoun.
  • * Shakespeare
  • They have demeaned themselves / Like men born to renown by life or death.
  • * Clarendon
  • They answered that they should demean themselves according to their instructions.

    Noun

  • (archaic) Management; treatment.
  • * Spenser
  • vile demean and usage bad
  • (archaic) Behavior; conduct; bearing; demeanor.
  • * 1596 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , V.5:
  • *:‘When thou hast all this doen, then bring me newes / Of his demeane […].’
  • * West
  • with grave demean and solemn vanity

    Etymology 3

    Var. of demesne.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • demesne.
  • resources; means.
  • Anagrams

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