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Demean vs Depreciate - What's the difference?

demean | depreciate |

As verbs the difference between demean and depreciate

is that demean is to debase; to lower; to degrade while depreciate is to lessen in price or estimated value; to lower the worth of; to represent as of little value or claim to esteem; to undervalue.

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

    * * *

    depreciate

    English

    Verb

    (depreciat)
  • To lessen in price or estimated value; to lower the worth of; to represent as of little value or claim to esteem; to undervalue.
  • * (rfdate) Cudworth
    • some over-severe philosophers may look upon fastidiously, or undervalue and depreciate .
  • * (rfdate) Burke
    • To prove that the Americans ought not to be free, we are obliged to depreciate the value of freedom itself.
  • To decline in value over time.
  • To belittle.

    • Usage notes

    * Do not confuse with deprecate , which means 'to disapprove of'. The meaning of deprecate'' has lately been encroaching on ''depreciate in the sense 'to belittle'.

    Synonyms

    * (reduce in value over time) * (belittle) do down

    Antonyms

    * (reduce in value over time) appreciate * (belittle) aggrandise/aggrandize, big up (slang)