Verb

To bring down the size, quantity, quality, value or intensity of something; to diminish, to lower, to impair.

* to reduce weight, speed, heat, expenses, price, personnel etc.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01

, author=Stephen Ledoux , title=Behaviorism at 100 , volume=100, issue=1, page=60 , magazine= citation , passage=Becoming more aware of the progress that scientists have made on behavioral fronts can reduce the risk that other natural scientists will resort to mystical agential accounts when they exceed the limits of their own disciplinary training.}}

To lose weight.

To bring to an inferior rank; to degrade, to demote.

* to reduce a sergeant to the ranks

* An ancient but reduced family. --.

* Nothing so excellent but a man may fasten upon something belonging to it, to reduce it. --.

* Having reduced their foe to misery beneath their fears. -- .

* Hester Prynne was shocked at the condition to which she found the clergyman reduced . --.

*

Neither [Jones] nor I (in 1966) could conceive of reducing our "science" to the ultimate absurdity of reading Finnish newspapers almost a century and a half old in order to establish "priority."

To humble; to conquer; to subdue; to capture.

* to reduce a province or a fort

To bring to an inferior state or condition.

* to reduce a city to ashes

(cooking) To decrease the liquid content of food by boiling much of its water off.

(chemistry) To add electrons / hydrogen or to remove oxygen.

(metallurgy) To produce metal from ore by removing nonmetallic elements in a smelter.

(mathematics) To simplify an equation or formula without changing its value.

(legal) To convert to written form (Usage note: this verb almost always take the phrase "to writing").

* It is important that all business contracts be reduced to writing.

(medicine) To perform a reduction; to restore a fracture or dislocation to the correct alignment.

(military) To reform a line or column from (a square).

Verb

To bear, bring or carry down.

*1882 , Hermes (Trismegistus.), John David Chambers (1805-1893), The theological and philosophical works of Hermes Trismegistus :

Immediately from the downborne elements sprung forth The Word of The God to the pure creation of all Nature, [...]

To bear or press down (on); press upon; depress; subdue.

*1997 , Bob Flaws, Curing Insomnia Naturally with Chinese Medicine :

Further, Caulis Bambusae downbears' the stomach, thus ' downbearing upwardly counterflowing depressive heat.

*2000 , Philippe Sionneau, Lü Gang, The Treatment of Disease in Tmc: General Symptoms :

Together, these points supplement the qi to help upbear the clear and downbear the turbid when needled with supplementing method.

*2007 , Bruce H. Robinson, Biomedicine :

When one relaxes physically as well as mentally, whatever qi should be upborne is upborne and whatever qi should be downborne' is ' downborne .

To lessen; reduce.

*1998 , Bob Flaws, Sticking to the Point :

The stomach channel's uniting point, Zu San Li, is chosen in order to drain the stomach and downbear counterflow.