Abases

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To reduce someone's status or reputation while making them feel worthless or belittled, often as a punitive action
2. To bring down an individual's standing or honor, resulting in feelings of inferiority or humiliation
3. To degrade a person's social standing or dignity by making them feel humiliated

Etymology: "Abases" is the third-person singular form of "abase", so it simply means "abases" in the sense of lowering someone's standing. The verb "abase" came into English from Middle French "abaisser", meaning "to lower", and English speakers originally used it in a physical sense, to bend down or stoop, long before it took on its moral meaning of humbling a person. The word is built from two parts. The prefix "a-" comes from Latin "ad", meaning "toward", and the root is Old French "baissier", "to lower", which likely traces back to Medieval Latin "bassus", meaning "short of stature, low". Those Latin and French roots gave the verb its basic sense of making something go downward. English spelling has since drifted. The word has been shaped by the familiar English word "base", so it now looks as if it means "to move toward the base", though its actual roots lie elsewhere. Related forms appear in Catalan "abaixar" and Occitan "abaissar", which carry the same idea of lowering.

Synonyms: humiliate, demean, degrade

Antonyms: elevate, honor