derank

See also: de-rank

English

Alternative forms

• de-rank

Etymology

From de- +‎ rank.

Verb

derank (third-person singular simple present deranks, present participle deranking, simple past and past participle deranked)

1. (linguistics) To inflect into a form that cannot be used in independent declarative clauses.

   In normal English speech one usually deranks "he should go" to "to go", as in "I told him where to go."

   • 1984, Journal of semantics - Volume 3, page 164:

     In this language, syntactic sequences with identical subjects derank the second predicate into a subjunctive form, which is characterized by the presenece of a specific particle a and special rules for the placement of pronouns.

   • 2009, Karsten Schmidtke-Bode, A Typology of Purpose Clauses, →ISBN, page 72:

     In this case, then, the infinitival morpheme functions more locally to simply derank the verb in the purpose clause.

   • 2015, Axel Holvoet, Nicole Nau, Voice and Argument Structure in Baltic, →ISBN, page 263:

     These verbs – together with their NRM equivalents – are characterized by a construal which deranks the perceiver to a degree that it cannot even be imagined in the same clause.

   • 2015, Katja Hetterle, Adverbial Clauses in Cross-Linguistic Perspective, →ISBN, page 129:

     This is not unexpected in subordinate clauses and might be considered a marginal means to derank a clause; the clause loses the freedom to contain any possible (pragmatically marked) structural configuration and gets restricted to pragmatically neutral content (cf. also Lehmann 1988: 195).

2. (military) To strip of rank; demote.
   • 1950, As You Were, page 68:

     "I remember one time," he said, brushing my boots aside, "when I had trouble like this with an M.O. He was going to have me arrested and deranked and marched out and so on and so on. Nothin' came of it."

   • 1989 -, Lindsay Thompson, I Remember, page 10:

     The uproarious laughter coming from the back of our truck provided small consolation although one kind hearted signaller did point out that it was an honour to be deranked by such a famous General.

   • 1997, Bernd-Rüdiger Hüppauf, War, Violence, and the Modern Condition, →ISBN, page 355:

     The common theme of the different pieces of Müller's Wolokolamsk Highway is a certain form of heroic stoicism which enables the protagonists to overcome their inhibition against hurting their own men in the name of socialism: The Russian commanders sentence and derank their comrades despite the fact that they are members of their party, and the East German functionaries respectively criticize and denounce their protege and adoptive son.

   • 2010, Obi N. Ignatius Ebbe, Broken Back Axle: Unspeakable Events in Biafra, →ISBN, page 139:

     Without any waste of time, he deranked all the officers of the Fifty-first Brigade from the rank of major to the rank of lieutenant.

3. (more generally) To demote; to give a lower position within a hierarchy.
   • 1913, The Car Worker - Volume 11, Issue 9 - Volume 12, Issue 9, page 6:

     If they do not qualify within thirty days, they are to be so notified and deranked to their former position.

   • 1915, Western railroads arbitration, Exhibits Presented by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen:

     An Engineer shall not be dismissed, suspended, deranked, nor shall an entry be made against his efficiency record without sufficient cause, and not then until after a fair and formal investigation has been held, if he desires it.

   • 2013, James Clark, Shirley Hitchings, The Poltergeist Prince of London, →ISBN:

     I think no longer of you as my first trustworthy scribe - I have deranked you to "Pen scribble".

   • 2017, Milo Hastings, City of Endless Night, →ISBN:

     You would have been deranked and perhaps made a record clerk --no personal reflections, but such things do happen-- and if you now were filing cards all day you would surely be much happier if you could believe in our divinity.

4. (video games) To lower or remove achievements and skill level.
   • 2003, John Henderson, BradyGames, & Danielle Vanderlip, Shadowbane Official Strategy Guide, →ISBN, page 295:

     A building will derank one level at a time as its hitpoints are whittled away. So, while it may seem that the life bar is at its end, attackers need to take into account if they are merely deranking the building by one or whether they have taken it down to Rank1 and are about to destroy the building.

   • 2015, Alan F. Meades, Understanding Counterplay in Video Games, →ISBN, page 60:

     Derank lobbies were used to damage and undermine the statistical profiles and removing the associated unlocks of players lured into playing them, initially those deemed to have played inapproprately by illegitimately improving their profiles by modding. While this may have been an act of retribution, Zakhaev got most of his enjoyment from the anguished responses of those he had deranked, and the deranking lobby became a barbed example of counterplay - a vindictive prank to humilieate, annoy, and cost victimes time.

   • 2017 February 6, Ike Recio, “Blizzard Is Against 'Overwatch' Players Who Derank Themselves On Purpose”, in iTech Post:

     Some are maybe confused as to why some players would choose to derank themselves on purpose, but it's actually a trick that master players do in order to be paired up with players of a lower skill level during matches.

5. To lower or remove an official ranking or accreditation.
   • 1921, Holstein-Friesian World - Volume 18, Issue 1, page 46:

     The introduction of purchased animals from herds which have not been tested, the “over-the-fence intimacy of tested animals with cattle which had not been tested, and the feeding of milk to young stock on accredited farms which had been purchased from neighboring farmers whose herds had never been tested resulted in the deranking of these, erstwhile accredited herds.

   • 1987, The Forestry chronicle - Volume 63, page 230:

     Isn't there a time to justify a species' gradual deranking from the top of the priority list in favour of another at the bottom?

   • 1993, United States Congress Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Corruption in Professional Boxing:

     I have also responded to Subcommittee questions about how boxers are ranked, unranked, deranked, not ranked at all, and how the four governing organizations govern or not.

   • 2008, Deniz Igan, Ms. Natalia T. Tamirisa, Are Weak Banks Leading Credit Booms? Evidence From Emerging Europe, →ISBN:

     Next, the premerger banks were reranked to ensure that they were included in the data set, and the postmerger banks were deranked to exclude them from the premerger period.

6. To lower the status or importance of
   • 1913, William Edwin Orchard, Sermons on God, Christ and man, page 224:

     The reply to this objection is that the inability to suffer is the worst punishment that can befall a man ; he is by that same thing deranked from humanity ; the lowest hell into which a man can fall is that hell where there is no feeling, the hell in which a man may be without knowing it.

   • 1973, Intellect - Volume 102, page 194:

     An intriguing reconstruction of the liberal arts follows, designed for the age of democracy and technology, deranking but retaining the classics and humanizing the study of science.

   • 1993 -, P. K. Mohapatra, Religion and social change, page 79:

     The Purusa Sukta was contrived by the brahmins at a much later period of time to perpetuate the deranking of the sudra tribe of the ksatriya varna.

   • 1996, Lorraine M. Wright, Beliefs: The Heart of Healing in Families and Illness, page 236:

     The young man comes to the foreground, deranking the debilitating illness to the background.

   • 2011, Derek Ellis, Sex, Food and Rank: In Humans and Animals, →ISBN, page 237:

     Instead, at some stage, the older man is ritually deranked from his working group by retirement. Peer pressure deranks him in many other activities from sport to sex. Within the family, he will also derank at some stage to the role of consultant in family affairs, especially in those matters in which he has experience.

   • 2015, Melissa Vail, Facets of Betrayal, →ISBN:

     But what I said...in no manner was it meant to derank, lower your value as a person, nor to decrease your respect as man.

Derived terms

• deranking

Anagrams

• Danker, Kendra, danker, darken, endark, kendra, narked, ranked