Degrade vs Devolve - What's the difference?
degrade | devolve |
To lower in value or social position.
* Palfrey
To reduce in quality or purity.
(geology) To reduce in altitude or magnitude, as hills and mountains; to wear down.
(obsolete) To roll (something) down; to unroll.
* 1744 , (Mark Akenside), The Pleasures of the Imagination , II:
* 1830 , , Character :
To be inherited by someone else; to pass down (upon) the next person in a succession, especially through failure or loss of an earlier holder.
* 1932 , (Duff Cooper), Talleyrand , Folio Society 2010, p. 4:
To delegate (a responsibility, duty etc.) (on) or (upon) someone.
* 1704 , (Joseph Addison), Remarks on Several Parts of Italy :
* 1756 , (Edmund Burke), A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful :
To fall as a duty or responsibility (on) or (upon) someone.
* , Episode 16:
To degenerate; to break down.
In transitive terms the difference between degrade and devolve
is that degrade is to lower in value or social position while devolve is to delegate (a responsibility, duty etc.) {{term|on}} or {{term|upon}} someone.In intransitive terms the difference between degrade and devolve
is that degrade is to reduce in quality or purity while devolve is to degenerate; to break down.degrade
English
Verb
(degrad)- Fred degrades himself by his behaviour.
- Prynne was sentenced by the Star Chamber Court to be degraded from the bar.
- The DNA sample has degraded .
Derived terms
* degradationdevolve
English
Verb
(en-verb)- every headlong stream / Devolves its winding waters to the main.
- He spake of virtue […] And with […] a lack-lustre dead-blue eye, Devolved his rounded periods.
- an accident […] rendered him permanently lame, and therefore unfitted him, in the opinion of his parents, to inherit his father's many titles, which, it was then arranged, should devolve upon his younger brother.
- They devolved their whole authority into the hands of the council of sixty.
- An artful man became popular, the people had power in their hands, and they devolved a considerable share of their power upon their favourite […].
- For the nonce he was rather nonplussed but inasmuch as the duty plainly devolved upon him to take some measures on the subject he pondered suitable ways and means during which Stephen repeatedly yawned.
- A discussion about politics may devolve into a shouting match.