Decry vs Demean - What's the difference?
decry | demean |
To denounce as harmful.
* 1970 , Alvin Toffler, Future Shock'', ''Bantam Books , pg. 99:
* 1970 , Alvin Toffler, Future Shock'', ''Bantam Books , pg. 474:
To blame for ills.
To debase; to lower; to degrade.
* Thackeray
To humble, humble oneself; to humiliate.
To mortify.
To manage; to conduct; to treat.
* Milton
To conduct; to behave; to comport; followed by the reflexive pronoun.
* Shakespeare
* Clarendon
(archaic) Management; treatment.
* Spenser
(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
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)- 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.
- 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.
References
* Chambers's Etymological Dictionary , 1896, p. 114 * * *Anagrams
*demean
English
Etymology 1
(1595) From . Compare English (m).Verb
(en verb)- Her son would demean himself by a marriage with an artist's daughter.
Synonyms
* debase * lower * degradeEtymology 2
From (etyl) .Verb
(en verb)- [Our] clergy have with violence demeaned the matter.
- They have demeaned themselves / Like men born to renown by life or death.
- They answered that they should demean themselves according to their instructions.
Noun
- vile demean and usage bad
- with grave demean and solemn vanity