How to Use degrade in a Sentence

degrade

verb
  • Scratches on a camera lens will degrade the image.
  • The group accuses the company of degrading women in its ads.
  • He felt degraded by their remarks.
  • Pollution has degraded air quality.
  • Bettery still, the ANC didn’t degrade the sound of the music.
    — Mark Sparrow, Forbes, 17 Oct. 2021
  • Unlike Breath of the Wild, weapons don’t degrade over time.
    — Cecilia D'anastasio, Wired, 1 Oct. 2020
  • The danger of a work like Snow is that the copy might degrade the original.
    — Paul Franz, The Atlantic, 21 Oct. 2020
  • The problem is that cane toad toxins take longer to degrade.
    — Cody Cottier, Discover Magazine, 30 Sep. 2024
  • The position that allows thugs to get in your face and yell, curse and degrade you.
    — Jonathan Bullington, The Courier-Journal, 22 Sep. 2020
  • The position that allows thugs to get in your face and yell, curse and degrade you.
    — NBC News, 22 Sep. 2020
  • The hairs, found in 2010, were degraded and DNA testing at the time couldn’t yield results.
    — Aya Elamroussi, CNN, 15 July 2023
  • The warning reminds boaters that the foam life jackets can degrade and fail.
    — Cameron Knight, The Enquirer, 30 June 2021
  • Heat and sunlight degrade the virus on surfaces, the USDA says.
    — Alexander Tin, CBS News, 13 Jan. 2025
  • By then the fierce winds had degraded to medium-strength breezes.
    — Zachariah Hughes, Anchorage Daily News, 17 Mar. 2023
  • One voice uses a racial slur and stereotype to degrade Floyd.
    — Annysa Johnson, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 4 June 2020
  • And the vials of DNA in which information is stored can degrade over time.
    — Robert F. Service, Science | AAAS, 11 Jan. 2021
  • These are all quick ways to degrade the company and the quality of the platform.
    — Peter Weber, The Week, 31 Oct. 2022
  • When an egg sits and matures in storage, the white will begin to break down or degrade.
    — Nina Moskowitz, Bon Appétit, 16 Feb. 2024
  • Either shape, the team fretted, might degrade project safety and set off alarms at the EPA.
    — Wired, 29 July 2022
  • Rinse the spot with clean water to remove any soap residue, which might degrade the fabric over time.
    — Nafeesah Allen, Better Homes & Gardens, 27 July 2024
  • And although ground beef stays good in the freezer for a long time, its flavor does degrade over time.
    — Martha Sorren, Woman's Day, 11 May 2020
  • That way, when a protein degrades and needs to be replaced, the other remains in place.
    — Ajdina Halilovic, Quanta Magazine, 7 May 2025
  • The stomach tends to degrade them, and Levin says the current version of their compound would need to be a pretty large pill.
    — WIRED, 14 Feb. 2023
  • Hence, the products should still work, but the experience may degrade over time.
    — Michael Kan, PCMAG, 10 Apr. 2023
  • My philosophy is to build the kids up and never yell at them or degrade them.
    — Emmett Hall, sun-sentinel.com, 15 Sep. 2021
  • The blades will not degrade even after sanding and painting.
    — Linda Gandee, cleveland, 26 Sep. 2022
  • If it's degraded... the photoreceptors in the back of the eye could be lost forever.
    — Cara Lynn Shultz, Peoplemag, 8 Apr. 2024
  • The result did more to degrade Tocqueville than to elevate Louis-Napoleon.
    — Dan McLaughlin, National Review, 28 Dec. 2023
  • Faster charging speeds can degrade the battery faster, and that’s not something Apple wants to risk.
    — Chris Smith, BGR, 7 Mar. 2022
  • Meanwhile, Erebus is at risk of degrading due to strong currents.
    — Meilan Solly, Smithsonian Magazine, 19 May 2025

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