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Demean vs Condescend - What's the difference?

demean | condescend |

As verbs the difference between demean and condescend

is that demean is to debase; to lower; to degrade while condescend is to come down from one's superior position; to deign (to do something).

As a noun demean

is management; treatment.

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

    Related terms

    * demeanor

    Etymology 3

    Var. of demesne.

    Noun

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

    • Anagrams

    * * *

    condescend

    English

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (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), Agnes Grey , Ch.5:
  • *: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 , , Clever Woman of the Family , Ch.7:
  • *: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), Struggling Upward , Ch.3:
  • *:"This is the pay I get for condescending to let you go with me."
  • To come down.

    • 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) descend

    Related terms

    * condescendence * condescension

    External links

    * *