Degradation
Related: corrupted - depravity - baser instincts
Definition
v.tr.
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1. To reduce in grade, rank, or status; demote.
2. To lower in dignity; dishonor or disgrace: a scandal that degraded the participants.
3. To lower in moral or intellectual character; debase.
4. To reduce in worth or value: degrade a currency.
Dehumanization
Now and throughout history, pejorative language has played a major role in the longstanding victimization of women. This study employs a comprehensive classification of degrading categories -- deficient human, subhuman, animal, parasite, disease, inanimate object, and waste product -- as a framework for analyzing the demeaning words invoked to justify man's inhumanity to women. It concludes with observations about how this pernicious anti-female lexicon of derogation is part and parcel of a pervasive seamless shroud of anti-life rhetoric called upon to rationalize violence against other victims (born and unborn) in contemporary society and in times past. --William Brennan, Ph.D., Female Objects of Semantic Dehumanization and Violence http://www.fnsa.org/v1n3/brennan1.html [Dec 2004]