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
  • 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
  • In their view, governments and central banks breached a covenant with their citizens not to debase the currency through profligate spending.
    Jeff John Roberts, Fortune, 18 Jan. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'debase.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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