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Demean vs Diminish - What's the difference?

demean | diminish |

As verbs the difference between demean and diminish

is that demean is to debase; to lower; to degrade while diminish is to make smaller.

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

    Etymology 3

    Var. of demesne.

    Noun

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

    * * *

    diminish

    English

    Verb

    (es)
  • To make smaller.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-12-14
  • , author=Simon Jenkins, authorlink=Simon Jenkins, volume=188, issue=2, page=23 , date=2012-12-21, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= We mustn't overreact to North Korea boys' toys , passage=The threat of terrorism to the British lies in the overreaction to it of British governments. Each one in turn clicks up the ratchet of surveillance, intrusion and security. Each one diminishes liberty.}}
  • To become smaller.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Old soldiers? , passage=Whether modern, industrial man is less or more warlike than his hunter-gatherer ancestors is impossible to determine.
  • To lessen the authority or dignity of; to put down; to degrade; to abase; to weaken.
  • * Robynson (More's Utopia)
  • This doth nothing diminish their opinion.
  • * Bible, Ezekiel xxix. 15
  • I will diminish them, that they shall no more rule over the nations.
  • * Milton
  • O thou at whose sight all the stars / Hide their diminished heads.
  • To taper.
  • To disappear gradually.
  • To take away; to subtract.
  • * Bible, Deuteronomy iv. 2
  • Neither shall ye diminish aught from it.
  • (music) To reduce a perfect or minor interval by a semitone.
  • Derived terms

    * law of diminishing returns