Abasement
to reduce or lower, as in rank, office, reputation, or estimation; humble; degrade.
Archaic. to lower; put or bring down:
He abased his head.
verb (transitive)
to humble or belittle (oneself, etc)
to lower or reduce, as in rank or estimation
n.
early 15c., “embarrassment, dread, fear,” from abase + -ment. Sense of “action of lowering in price” is mid-15c.; “action of lowering in rank” is 1560s; “condition of being abased” is from 1610s.
v.
late 14c., abaishen, from Old French abaissier “diminish, make lower in value or status” (12c.), from Vulgar Latin *ad bassiare “bring lower,” from Late Latin bassus “thick, fat, low;” from the same source as base (adj.) and altered 16c. in English by influence of it, which made it an exception to the rule that Old French verbs with stem -iss- enter English as -ish. Related: Abased; abasing.
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(of a charge) lower on an escutcheon than is usual: a bend abased. to reduce or lower, as in rank, office, reputation, or estimation; humble; degrade. Archaic. to lower; put or bring down: He abased his head. Historical Examples They creep round with huge burdens of stone bowing them down to the very dust and […]
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ashamed or embarrassed; disconcerted: My clumsiness left me abashed. to destroy the self-confidence, poise, or self-possession of; disconcert; make ashamed or embarrassed: to abash someone by sneering. Contemporary Examples When she came to power in 1978, Britain was a dreary, dreary place: dingy, funereal, abashed, scruffy, feckless. How Margaret Thatcher Transformed British Politics Tunku Varadarajan […]
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to destroy the self-confidence, poise, or self-possession of; disconcert; make ashamed or embarrassed: to abash someone by sneering. Historical Examples Her reticence in that respect, however, did not in the least abash Jesse. The Eddy Clarence L. Cullen It would have been useless; nothing could alter or abash her inherent unmorality. Olive in Italy Moray […]
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to destroy the self-confidence, poise, or self-possession of; disconcert; make ashamed or embarrassed: to abash someone by sneering. Historical Examples He will tell you with pride rather than with abashment that he is an empleado—a State dependent. The Philippine Islands John Foreman Crimsoning, Alrek fell from his hill of scorn to the valley of abashment. […]