Emily Dickinson Lexicon

DEG-RA-DA'TION, n. [Fr. See Degrade.]

1. A reducing in rank; the act of depriving one of a degree of honor, of dignity, or of rank; also, deposition; removal or dismission from office; as, the degradation of a peer, of a knight, or of a bishop, in England.
2. The state of being reduced from an elevated or more honorable station, to one that is low in fact or in estimation; baseness; degeneracy. Deplorable is the degradation of our nature. – South.
3. Diminution or reduction of strength, efficacy or value.
4. In painting, a lessening and obscuring of the appearance of distant objects in a landscape, that they may appear as they would do to an eye placed at a distance. – Johnson. Encyc.
5. Diminution; reduction of altitude or magnitude. – Journ. of Science.