What's the difference between abject and debase?

Abject


Definition:

  • (a.) Cast down; low-lying.
  • (a.) Sunk to a law condition; down in spirit or hope; degraded; servile; groveling; despicable; as, abject posture, fortune, thoughts.
  • (a.) To cast off or down; hence, to abase; to degrade; to lower; to debase.
  • (n.) A person in the lowest and most despicable condition; a castaway.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) He is an expert on the public health problems that plague El Paso and the other cities along the international border, all of which are exacerbated by abject poverty and a burgeoning population.
  • (2) During his long stint in the witness stand, Harris was questioned at length about why he expressed abject remorse to the father for his actions, offering a little more credible explanation than he felt ending the relationship had upset the woman.
  • (3) And while Altmejd presents sexual scenes of cartoonish horror and disgust, Lucas's art has embraced lavatorial humour, abjection, self-denigration, the pithy sculptural one-liner and the obscene gesture.
  • (4) An Israeli commentator said of the first of them: "when one looks through all the lofty phraseology, all the deliberate disinformation, the hundreds of pettifogging sections, sub-sections, appendices and protocols, one clearly recognises that the Israeli victory was absolute and Palestine defeat abject."
  • (5) It is an abject failure to take the rights of females seriously.
  • (6) Obviously Pantilimon is more abject than Hart,” says Graham Lees “and Demichelis must have lied on his CV but why does no one bemoan the wretchedness, sorry, opportunity gifted to Sunderland, of Nasri’s selection?
  • (7) Indeed, we have been reminded recently of the abject poverty that many have fallen into, needing to use food banks or choose between "eating and heating" and the need for charitable institutions to step forward and help the needy.
  • (8) Now, millions of working people who would otherwise be languishing in abject poverty depend on these tax credits.
  • (9) It was an abject defeat for a leader whose response to the migration crisis deserved better.
  • (10) Meanwhile the victims are sitting there in abject poverty and have not received any compensation."
  • (11) The aim was to secure a politically and militarily allied government in a strategically important country, a mission which David Cameron amusingly declared this week to have been "accomplished" despite the western alliance's abject failure over 12 years to defeat that Taliban's rag-tag army and the refusal of the corrupt Hamid Karzai administration to play ball over the country's long-term future .
  • (12) But it bears testament, too, to the Brown government's abject failure to give a comprehensible account of itself that the opposition should find such easy pickings.
  • (13) It's all there: sexual and social confusion, vulnerability and violence, alienation and loneliness, the oscillation between feeling abject and worthless and wanting to take over the world, the fantasies of power and revenge.
  • (14) "Outright hostility, abject surrender - that's what you have seen in the past.
  • (15) The picture you have painted is one of abject squalor made worse by a generally lazy approach to hygiene.
  • (16) Smith could not have been more abjectly humiliated.
  • (17) Given the abject failure of much of the western media to scrutinise its actions – at least until it's too late – it may believe it can get away with it.
  • (18) He ended up with five during the Euro 2016 qualifying campaign but all came in the fixtures against an abject Gibraltar, featuring a hat-trick in the home game scored, memorably, from a combined total of eight yards.
  • (19) Mick Cash, RMT general secretary, said: “The abject failure by Southern rail in yesterday’s talks to take the safety issues seriously has left us with no option but to confirm further action.
  • (20) Recent weeks have seen a succession of good news stories from Iraq, including the ceremonial reopening of the national museum, whose looting in 2003 symbolised the abject failure to plan for the post-war period.

Debase


Definition:

  • (a.) To reduce from a higher to a lower state or grade of worth, dignity, purity, station, etc.; to degrade; to lower; to deteriorate; to abase; as, to debase the character by crime; to debase the mind by frivolity; to debase style by vulgar words.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The borderline group scored significantly higher on the following scales: Disclosure (X), Debasement (Z), Passive-Aggressive (8A), Self-Defeating (8B), Borderline (C), and Major Depression (CC).
  • (2) I still have the stench of their debasement in my nostrils.
  • (3) Inevitably, they are not to everyone's taste: educated Mexicans are scandalised by what they see as the debasement of a noble folk tradition, the Catholic Church has denounced corridistas for glorifying the drugs trade, and at least five Mexican states have banned radios from airing the music.
  • (4) I said to Nick Boles, who at the time was the planning minister, ‘Have you been down to Eastleigh yet?’ and he said, ‘I’m told I’m not allowed to go down in case it inflames the whole housebuilding issue.’” Browne added: “The public, whether it’s the NHS or housebuilding, detect that gap, and you will see it now at constituency level with quite debased leaflet-based campaigning about what the parties are going to stop at local level, which is almost completely at odds with the macro-level speeches that the leaders are making up in Westminster.
  • (5) The impact reaches far beyond the figures inscribed on a Test-match scorebook and debases the credibility of the entire sport.
  • (6) If the system is to be effective, however, every temptation must be resisted by all involved parties to debase it by using it for self-serving purposes.
  • (7) But the most debased and vulgar abuse is directed at women, particularly liberal and secular women, and especially women who are not Hindu,” Guha said.
  • (8) In a society that values women on the basis of their sexuality, a woman who views herself as "debased" may see prostitution as a viable alternative--perhaps the only alternative.
  • (9) Failing all the above, do they have any worth in the rapidly debasing currency of iconicity?
  • (10) Twelve manipulation tactics were identified through separate factor analyses of two instruments based on different data sources: Charm, Reason, Coercion, Silent Treatment, Debasement, and Regression (replicating Buss et al., 1987), and Responsibility Invocation, Reciprocity, Monetary Reward, Pleasure Induction, Social Comparison, and Hardball (an amalgam of threats, lies, and violence).
  • (11) A possible cause of these complications may be the debasement of coagulation factors and opsonins in plasma after hepatectomy.
  • (12) They could not simultaneously debase the currency and back it with gold at a fixed rate.
  • (13) It's debased and stupefied, really, but that's daily politics."
  • (14) The progress in prenatal diagnosis and the possibility of replacing risk with security is about to debase the rationale of genetic counseling.
  • (15) Yet on this issue there appears to be a licence to reject our best scientists both here and abroad and rely instead on much less reliable views.” He has railed against the “dumbing down” of Australian debate in general and the debasing of smart policy for political gain.
  • (16) While this clown's latest assertion of his alpha-maleness, in debased imitation of Bertram Wooster's misadventures, will undoubtedly add to female consternation about a Drones Club government whose leader insults women and twits his rival for being insufficiently "macho", Mitchell's contribution to the public understanding of hegemonic masculinity also deserves a mention.
  • (17) A third factor is that currencies are being debased in the developed world, where sovereign debt is at record levels and bearish commentators fear the dollar could slump 20% in the next two years.
  • (18) Social cohesion is repeatedly challenged by the knowing use of debasing and divisive language, a politics where voters are encouraged to imagine all benefits claimants are scroungers and every migrant as potentially illegal.
  • (19) For Coetzee, the result reflected a debasement of Britain’s political culture: the traducing, with media complicity, of rational discourse by a leave campaign that targeted the very idea of factual argument.
  • (20) The purpose of these developments however is clear: to debase and disempower Republican Political Prisoners.” The republican prisoners warned: “Those overseeing and implementing these policies would do well to use history as their guide to see where their actions will lead.” In 2012 dissident republicans shot dead a Maghaberry prison officer, David Black , while he drove along a motorway on his way to work at the prison.