How to Use demean in a Sentence

demean

verb
  • Depp said that Heard made little digs at him to demean him.
    CBS News, 20 Apr. 2022
  • The Kumbaya factor has made the award look so PC as to be demeaning.
    John Mariani, Forbes, 3 May 2023
  • In fact, the seating arrangement in the Great Hall of the People with Xi at the head of the table was demeaning.
    Andrew Mark Miller, Fox News, 20 June 2023
  • Its goal was to fight back by demeaning Korean men in ways that mirrored the rhetoric on sites like Ilbe.
    Min Joo Lee, Fortune, 15 May 2023
  • When we are being assaulted by a system designed to demean and do us harm?
    Nancy Armour, USA TODAY, 24 June 2022
  • After the problems came to a head last month, he was placed on leave and has been ridiculed and demeaned by local officials for his conduct, Burke said.
    Nick Stoico, BostonGlobe.com, 11 Sep. 2023
  • Dougla was once a racist, abusive word used to demean those with Indian and African ancestry.
    Nadine Drummond, SELF, 7 Nov. 2020
  • Officials at the university denied that the move was meant to demean her.
    Washington Post, 3 Jan. 2021
  • To name a sports team after an ethnicity is to demean the ethnicity.
    Nicholas Frankovich, National Review, 24 July 2021
  • Despite this and other traumas omitted here, Perry swore to provide for his mother Maxine, as well as the man who’d mistreated and demeaned him all those years.
    Peter Debruge, Variety, 28 Oct. 2023
  • The team's unofficial role was to do media appearances and work on messaging behind the scenes to demean the House manager's case against the president to the public.
    David Jackson, USA TODAY, 20 Jan. 2024
  • Their unofficial role was to do media appearances and work on messaging behind the scenes to demean the House manager's case against the president to the public.
    Savannah Behrmann, USA TODAY, 27 Aug. 2020
  • Accusations of voter fraud historically were designed to demean the standing of people of color as citizens and to frame their use of the right to vote as dangerous.
    Atiba Ellis, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 6 Nov. 2020
  • As a wrestling fan himself, the Canadian-American filmmaker partially wanted to make a point to anyone who demeans the work of professional wrestlers.
    Brian Davids, The Hollywood Reporter, 20 Dec. 2023
  • The activity should not demean them or be disrespectful.
    Andrea Sachs, Washington Post, 18 Aug. 2022
  • Her grandmother Zahra, an old crone of a woman who cruelly spits out words to demean her daughter and granddaughter with little regard for their feelings, had always forbid them.
    Manuel Betancourt, Variety, 17 Nov. 2023
  • The former President has always been willing to use insults and personal mockery to demean his enemies.
    Stephen Collinson, CNN, 13 May 2021
  • As the number of assaults on Asian Americans rises, these heinous incidents have dredged up painful stereotypes used to demean and dehumanize Asian American women like me.
    Anne Chow, Fortune, 25 Apr. 2022
  • Moore, one of the team’s leaders, said Gilbert continually would try to ferret out information about teammates from her and demean their abilities in private meetings.
    Chris Solari, Detroit Free Press, 17 May 2021
  • For years, male colleagues joked about her sexuality — Ms. Moran is a lesbian — and demeaned her, according to allegations in the lawsuit and two people with knowledge of her experiences.
    Emily Flitter, New York Times, 29 Nov. 2023
  • As an example, research has demonstrated that people prefer a poor leader who is consistent rather than a leader who is inconsistent—kind or attentive one day and aloof or demeaning the next.
    Tracy Brower, Forbes, 7 May 2023
  • The words associated with and available to the community, once limited largely to language meant to demean or pathologize, have expanded to include more neutral or positive terms.
    Marc Ramirez, USA TODAY, 10 June 2022
  • With the promise of upward mobility spectacularly broken, all that’s left is the work itself, which is often egregiously demeaning and exploitative.
    Matthew Gavin Frank, Harper's Magazine, 1 May 2023
  • Its most insidious form may be a kind of internalized colonialism, in which, under foreign rule, a decimated and demoralized people are taught to demean their own traditions and ultimately turn away from them.
    New York Times, 17 Feb. 2022
  • Emotionally Abusive When you're constantly belittled or demeaned by a partner or friend in an effort to undermine your self-esteem, that's an emotionally abusive relationship.
    Sara Novak, Discover Magazine, 27 June 2023
  • Where Braugher is often associated with characters of authority and self-possession, his Owen Thoreau Jr. is an anxious man, diabetic, a father of three, whose life has run into a rut, working as a car salesman for a demanding, demeaning father.
    Robert Lloyd, Los Angeles Times, 13 Dec. 2023
  • Butcher recounts moments of verbal and emotional abuse directed from Jamie Spears towards Britney, using his conservatorship power to demean and manipulate his daughter in the early months of the conservatorship.
    Rebecca Alter, Vulture, 3 July 2021
  • Casually demeaning one’s workforce is, mercifully, going out of fashion.
    Jacobina Martin, Washington Post, 24 Aug. 2023
  • McKeever was fired nine months later after the investigation determined the coach was demeaning toward student-athletes in her program, discriminating against swimmers based on race or disabilities and using abusive language.
    Chuck Schilken, Los Angeles Times, 29 Dec. 2023
  • The companies will also not accept advertising money or book experiences that violate certain humane standards, such as physical interactions with captive wild or endangered species (with a few exceptions) or performances that demean the animals.
    Andrea Sachs, Washington Post, 18 Aug. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'demean.' 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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