How to Use debase in a Sentence

debase

verb

• The governor debased himself by lying to the public.
• The holiday has been debased by commercialism.
• The most debased and tragic is Jeff, who, with his wife, has worked at the fair for decades.
  — Margaret Lyons, New York Times, 30 May 2024
• In a way, the trend depends on forms that are otherwise debased.
  — Jesse Green, New York Times, 31 Jan. 2024
• The speed with which Kelly has debased himself is impressive even when compared to the likes of a Steven Mnuchin.
  — Frank Rich, Daily Intelligencer, 25 Oct. 2017
• Part of what people don’t like is that Amazon debases the value of things.
  — Scott Shane, New York Times, 30 Nov. 2019
• Haley is no avatar of the status quo ante but proof of how debased the party of Abraham Lincoln has become in its thrall to Trump.
  — Susan B. Glasser, The New Yorker, 28 Dec. 2023
• Governments need and want to know where the money is, need to control it, debase it, confiscate it, know how much is in play.
  — Clem Chambers, Forbes, 21 Apr. 2021
• The term genius has become debased through overuse today.
  — National Geographic, 14 Apr. 2018
• The judge was about to sentence one of two kidnappers who debased, raped and beat Hubbard and her friend before forcing them to dig their own graves.
  — Petula Dvorak, Washington Post, 25 Jan. 2024
• Not only are elections debased in this way, but the rule of law is also reliably drained of meaning through the use of pseudo-law.
  — Moisés Naím, Foreign Affairs, 22 Feb. 2022
• Why would parents want to publicly debase their own children?
  — Amanda Hess, New York Times, 25 Sep. 2023
• And that’s what De Niro’s political tantrums have debased.
  — Armond White, National Review, 5 June 2024
• The protests highlight the view that what our country stands for is being debased by the actions of certain segments of the population.
  — WSJ, 28 Sep. 2017
• Christ reduced to a potato chip, debased and vilified like two thousand years ago.
  — John Ganz, Harper's Magazine, 22 May 2024
• The mashup of pop fantasy and world history deadens the former and debases the latter.
  — Troy Patterson, The New Yorker, 18 Feb. 2020
• Opponents say the changes will debase the 850-year-old cathedral and disturb the harmony of its Gothic design.
  — New York Times, 10 Dec. 2021
• Senate Democrats seem to be competing to debase themselves most.
  — Karl Rove, WSJ, 26 Sep. 2018
• Most disheartening of all, facts, the hard currency of truth-telling, are being debased in Trump’s post-fact world, a move that can mute the most piercing whistle.
  — Tom Mueller, Twin Cities, 9 Oct. 2019
• The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust.
  — Pete Rizzo, Forbes, 26 Apr. 2021
• But unfortunately, the white man can debase himself to the condition of the Negro.
  — Anna Deavere Smith, The Atlantic, 13 Nov. 2023
• But does Wall Street, the emblem of our free market system, care if American democracy is debased, as long as the profits keep rolling in?
  — Larry Edelman, BostonGlobe.com, 17 July 2019
• And Aaron, all of this are reminders that Trump, and his enablers, debase us all and make a mockery of the norms, values and laws that have actually made America great.
  — Paul Ashworth, Cincinnati.com, 3 Oct. 2017
• Renfield is forced to procure his master’s prey and do his every bidding, no matter how debased.
  — Dallasnews.com Staff, Dallas News, 6 Apr. 2023
• Of the many ways in which Trump has asked his various flunkies to debase themselves for his benefit, having a lawyer borrow against his own home might be the most hilarious.
  — Jay Willis, GQ, 12 Mar. 2018
• In a multiparty system, each group would have to debase its own platform to build a majority.
  — WSJ, 13 Sep. 2022
• The future may add another caveat: Hate-crime charges have become debased in the public mind because of false accusations.
  — Holman W. Jenkins, WSJ, 22 Feb. 2019
• Or take the example of airline miles, a form of private currency that is constantly debased by its issuers.
  — Gideon Lewis-Kraus, WIRED, 18 June 2018
• The debasing view of girls leads many families to rid themselves of these children, seeing girls as a worthless drain on family resources.
  — Atlanta Life, ajc, 26 May 2017
• The decline in lead pollution was enhanced by Rome’s switch from the silver denarius, which had been increasingly debased with copper, to a gold standard.
  — The Economist, 19 May 2018

Last Updated: 13 Dec 2024