downgrade

English

Etymology

From down- +‎ grade.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈdaʊnˌɡɹeɪd/
• Hyphenation: down‧grade

Noun

downgrade (plural downgrades)

1. A reduction of a rating, as a financial or credit rating.

Verb

1. To place lower in position.

   The stock was downgraded from 'buy' to 'sell'.

2. To 'dumb down', reduce in complexity, or remove unnecessary parts.
   • 2012 June 26, Genevieve Koski, “Music: Reviews: Justin Bieber: Believe”, in The Onion AV Club‎^[1]:

     More significantly, rigid deference to Bieber’s still-young core fan base keeps things resolutely PG, with any acknowledgement of sex either couched in vague “touch your body” workarounds or downgraded to desirous hand-holding and eye-gazing.

3. (transitive) To disparage.
   • 1981, King Royer, Construction Manager in the 80's (page 278)

     Without downgrading my friends in the Building Trades, driving a nail or sawing a board is relatively simple.

4. (meteorology) to reduce the official estimate of a storm's intensity.
5. (computing) To revert software back to an older version.

Synonyms

• degrade
• demote
• defame
• reduce
• revert
• ruin

Translations

To place lower in position

• Bulgarian: понижавам (bg) (ponižavam)
• German: herabstufen (de), herunterstufen (de)
• Irish: íosghrádaigh
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Russian: понижа́ть (ru) impf (ponižátʹ), пони́зить (ru) pf (ponízitʹ)
• Spanish: degradar (es)

Anagrams

• dead wrong, dead-wrong, dog warden