(v. t.) To make little or less in a moral sense; to speak of in a depreciatory or contemptuous way.
Example Sentences:
(1) Harping on endlessly about a woman’s hair, legs and handbag instead of her ideas and achievements can be horribly belittling, a way of refusing to take her seriously as a professional.
(2) This is a dangerous moment for politics in Britain: it is not the moment to ignore or belittle the angry cry from voters telling us they are deeply sick of politics as usual.
(3) The more they feel insulted and belittled, the stronger their support for Corbyn.
(4) Comment is perfectly legitimate, but the sneering, supercilious, specious and dismissive contributions masquerading as ‘commentary’ belittle the claims of a ‘quality’ paper.” Before attempting to assess the validity of the reader’s analysis – broadly shared by some other readers – I think his email reflects one or two other interesting aspects of the demographics of the Guardian’s readership and the left.
(5) It happens within a society where we repeatedly hear victims dismissed, belittled and disbelieved at best, or, at worst,blamed for their own assaults.
(6) Perhaps Gove should attend some history lessons taught by the professionals he so belittles so that he can learn how to read and cite sources properly.
(7) That is not to belittle HIV – it is a life-changing condition, and some of the treatments have their side-effects – but, as HIV expert Prof Jonathan Weber put it to me, the treatment regimens developed in the mid-1990s are “so successful it’s like a miracle”.
(8) They had a candidate with pro-Putin, pro-Russian views who belittled Nato, who was willing to potentially remove sanctions on Russia and by contrast they had in Secretary Clinton a candidate very tough on Russia.
(9) Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said: "I regret the Australian PM statement belittling the phone-tapping in Indonesia without feeling guilty.
(10) The eccentric, gonzo-ish path that Vice has chosen to pursue instead has itself come in for sharp criticism from detractors among those he belittles as football-chasers.
(11) Modotti, Ollin and, to a lesser degree, Novo (who was ultimately a man and therefore less irritating to those in power), were cast aside and belittled by those who had it in their power to do so.
(12) He reacted angrily to a question about his father’s comments to the Guardian, claiming words were put in his mouth and accusing the media of trying to belittle the closure.
(13) The last Labour government sometimes appeared to belittle the concerns of those who were fearful of the pace of change, or longed for stability or order."
(14) It is acceptable to criticise and belittle Islam because it is a religion, not an ethnic grouping – and therefore fair game.
(15) "People belittled me, implying that it was my fault and that I shouldn't be an independent woman," she added.
(16) In 2010 Lula came under fire after belittling the plight of political prisoners on hunger strike in Cuba. "
(17) What strikes me, as it must have done him, is the way in which the intention behind the article – to belittle the food bank initiative – was turned on its head by the social media backlash.
(18) With no intention of belittling the importance of chronic ischemic heart disease (CIHD) in modern cardiology, the article focuses the attention on primary alcoholic heart disease--alcoholic cardiomyopathy (ACMP)--which arouses a far from causal interest due to the prevalence of alcoholism.
(19) In treating Plath as simply an object of sympathy, I suspect I have belittled her.
(20) Demirtas has been the target of fierce campaign attacks by Erdogan, who belittled him a “pretty boy” who is merely a front for the outlawed separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Derogate
Definition:
(v. t.) To annul in part; to repeal partly; to restrict; to limit the action of; -- said of a law.
(v. t.) To lessen; to detract from; to disparage; to depreciate; -- said of a person or thing.
(v. i.) To take away; to detract; to withdraw; -- usually with from.
(v. i.) To act beneath one-s rank, place, birth, or character; to degenerate.
(n.) Diminished in value; dishonored; degraded.
Example Sentences:
(1) The observed increase in self-derogation over a 1-year period in persons with initially positive self-attitudes is discussed with regard to the literature on developmental disturbances in self-image; differential volunerability to self-devaluing experiences; and the relationship between change in, and level of, self-acceptance.
(2) Results indicate that health care presented within the context of not having a choice is derogated and that choice and patient mix combine to influence intentions to seek care.
(3) Results indicated an effect of sex identification; the male blunderer was derogated most by male subjects (n = 34) and the female most by female subjects (n = 34).
(4) However, whether or not suicidal behaviors are related to self-derogating feelings in the more remote past can be seen as a function of a sex-social-class-mode of suicidal response interaction.
(5) Inspectors found that senior staff at Durham Free School had allowed a culture to develop where it was acceptable for racist words and sexually derogative and homophobic terms to be used.
(6) Detaining non-suspects for up to seven days, virtually incommunicado and without effective review at the time, removing the right to silence on penalty of imprisonment, and criminalising any disclosure of detention, is excessive and disproportionate in view of existing powers, the level of terrorist threat, and the absence of any declared public emergency justifying derogation from protected human rights.
(7) Some derogations could attenuate the severity of these dispositions--as jurisprudence had taken progresses of Epileptology and therapeutics into consideration.
(8) The duty of care owed by the commonwealth to asylum seekers and refugees is non-derogable – it cannot be suspended or transferred.
(9) Self-derogators were judged to be submissive, elicited dominating reactions, and selected more topics with negative content.
(10) A particularly interesting interpretation of this phenomenon, consistent with a large body of clinical and experimental literature, ascribes it to self-derogation processes in low-PA persons and self-enhancement processes in high-PA persons.
(11) But Caoilfhionn Gallagher, representing the media with Mike Dodd, legal editor of the Press Association, said not knowing the names would be “a major derogation from the open justice principle” – and that the public had a right to know who, and what, was going on in public courts.
(12) We predicted that authoritarian actors would engage in defensive attribution, and authoritarian observers would derogate the other, to a greater extent than egalitarian perceivers.
(13) The commission should expand the EU-wide ban to cover all uses of neonicotinoids on all crops, and end the self-service approach to derogations.
(14) 10c derogation intent When the EU adopted the climate and energy package in December 2008, the 10c derogation was included as an exception to the rule that from 2013 onwards, all allowances for power companies should be auctioned rather than granted for free.
(15) Many Tories were demanding she went for a temporary derogation of human rights laws.
(16) Attitudes toward victims of AIDS were conceptualized as serving three possible functions: a value-expressive function (e.g., stigmatization), an ego-defensive function (e.g., homosexual prejudice), or a knowledge function (e.g., victim derogation).
(17) The report adds: "As they incorporate derogations from the principle of open justice, superinjunctions and anonymised injunctions can only be granted when they are strictly necessary.
(18) Experiments 1 and 2 showed that self-derogations connote submissiveness but are generally judged to be neutral in affiliation.
(19) The European parliament’s industry committee last month approved a rule change allowing Greece to join the scheme, the ‘10c derogation’ of the emissions trading system (ETS).
(20) Article 15 of the human rights convention allows a state to withdraw temporarily or derogate in legal terms from some of its rights in times of national emergency which threaten the life of the nation, to allow the use of measures that have to be "strictly required".