Degrade vs Insult - What's the difference?
degrade | insult |
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 behave in an obnoxious and superior manner (over, against).
*, II.3.3:
To offend (someone) by being rude, insensitive or insolent; to demean or affront (someone).
(obsolete) To leap or trample upon; to make a sudden onset upon.
An action or form of speech deliberately intended to be rude.
* Savage
* 1987 , Jamie Lee Curtis, A Fish Called Wanda :
Anything that causes offence/offense, e.g. by being of an unacceptable quality.
(medicine) Something causing disease or injury to the body or bodily processes.
* 2006 , Stephen G. Lomber, Jos J. Eggermont, Reprogramming the Cerebral Cortex (page 415)
* 2011 , Terence Allen and Graham Cowling, The Cell: A Very Short Introduction , Oxford 2011, p. 96:
(obsolete) The act of leaping on; onset; attack.
In transitive terms the difference between degrade and insult
is that degrade is to lower in value or social position while insult is to offend (someone) by being rude, insensitive or insolent; to demean or affront (someone).As a noun insult is
an action or form of speech deliberately intended to be rude.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
* degradationinsult
English
Verb
(en verb)- thou hast lost all, poor thou art, dejected, in pain of body, grief of mind, thine enemies insult over thee, thou art as bad as Job […].
- (Shakespeare)
Synonyms
* (to offend) abuse, affront, offend, slight * See alsoAntonyms
*complimentNoun
(en noun)- the ruthless sneer that insult adds to grief
- To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people!
- The way the orchestra performed tonight was an insult to my ears.
- Within the complex genome of most organisms there are alternative multiple pathways of proteins which can help the individual cell survive a variety of insults , for example radiation, toxic chemicals, heat, excessive or reduced oxygen.
- (Dryden)
