as in to degrade
to lower in character, dignity, or quality
the long stay on a tropical isle had debauched the ship's crew to the point where they no longer acted like naval professionals
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Recent Examples of debauch
The dark comedy follows a wealthy socialite, Stacy (Cherry), and a struggling writer, Becky (Chalotra), who are brought together at a lavish, debauched New York party.
—
Lily Ford, HollywoodReporter, 14 Aug. 2025
The atmosphere, at once debauched and sombre, felt like a wake, one attendee said.
—Rachel Monroe, New Yorker, 18 Apr. 2025
But as commercialization took hold, the event metastasized into a pit of hard drugs, drunkenness, and debauch a world apart from its bohemian origins.
—Charlie Campbell, TIME, 17 Mar. 2025
In season two, when Mike White’s series decamped to Sicily, the credits riffed on Italian frescoes that got increasingly debauched — with a beat drop from opera to EDM.
—Jackson McHenry, Vulture, 16 Feb. 2025
Life is debauched and consistent, until that handsome twentysomething gent wanders into Lee’s favorite watering hole.
—David Fear, Rolling Stone, 27 Nov. 2024
Lily Ford, HollywoodReporter, 14 Aug. 2025
The atmosphere, at once debauched and sombre, felt like a wake, one attendee said.
—Rachel Monroe, New Yorker, 18 Apr. 2025
But as commercialization took hold, the event metastasized into a pit of hard drugs, drunkenness, and debauch a world apart from its bohemian origins.
—Charlie Campbell, TIME, 17 Mar. 2025
In season two, when Mike White’s series decamped to Sicily, the credits riffed on Italian frescoes that got increasingly debauched — with a beat drop from opera to EDM.
—Jackson McHenry, Vulture, 16 Feb. 2025
Life is debauched and consistent, until that handsome twentysomething gent wanders into Lee’s favorite watering hole.
—David Fear, Rolling Stone, 27 Nov. 2024
Recent Examples of Synonyms for debauch
Verb
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In their world, which is also ours, selfhood has degraded into taste, preferences, demography, and outlays of attention and money.—
Katy Waldman,
New Yorker,
20 Oct. 2025
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Unsubstantiated rumors still swirl online and in county meetings that wind, solar and battery storage facilities will degrade the environment, destroy rural culture and lower property values.—
Sophie Hartley,
IndyStar,
20 Oct. 2025
Verb
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Listers understands how technology can corrupt our leisure activities.—
Tyler Austin Harper,
The Atlantic,
20 Oct. 2025
-
Researchers had previously assumed attackers would need to corrupt a specific percentage of the data, which, for larger models would be millions of documents.—
Beatrice Nolan,
Fortune,
14 Oct. 2025
Verb
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Leawood police fielded nearly 400 food-poisoning complaints and conducted about 130 interviews, a volume that briefly crashed the department’s records system, according to the Johnson County Post, KSHB 41 and KCTV5.—
Christina Coulter,
PEOPLE,
28 Oct. 2025
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Chloe then baked a cake poisoned with oleander leaves killing the owner’s wife and some children.—
Noreen Kompanik,
Boston Herald,
26 Oct. 2025
Verb
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Within this world no others exist, except as things to be debased.—
David Wingrave,
Harpers Magazine,
24 Oct. 2025
-
In boom times, creditors are more trusting, lending standards get debased, and borrowed money is plentiful.—
John Cassidy,
New Yorker,
13 Oct. 2025
Verb
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Pressing for payment could humiliate people, who often arrive with their extended families, Parmar explained, and in a community this close-knit, that could mean losing dozens of patients, including many of the Medicaid patients who keep the clinic afloat.—
Helen Ouyang,
The Atlantic,
21 Oct. 2025
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By the time the cameras stopped clicking and the newsmen flew home, Kentucky had been humiliated in the national press, the onlooker’s violence both disputed and affirmed in accounts of this day.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
16 Oct. 2025
Verb
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Losing him for the entire World Series would weaken their already-thin bullpen, and force Roberts to get creative in high-leverage situations after his starting pitcher has been removed.—
Jon Paul Hoornstra,
MSNBC Newsweek,
24 Oct. 2025
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After accounting for lifestyle variables like exercise, the effects weakened a bit as, for example, more active people tend to spend more time outdoors.—
New Atlas,
New Atlas,
24 Oct. 2025
Verb
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The real fiends were the ones who perverted science, who attacked this misunderstood giant out of fear, who branded him as something unholy and unworthy to exist, who gave him life but didn’t give him love.—
David Fear,
Rolling Stone,
9 Sep. 2025
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Aware of this injustice, companies are hiring lawyers and influence peddlers to bolster their MAGA credentials and pervert traditional law enforcement.—
Martha McHardy,
MSNBC Newsweek,
22 Aug. 2025
Verb
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But Interview With the Vampire set a precedent for transformative TV from the Immortal Universe, its narrative and visual audacity subverting adaptation tropes and genre storytelling by challenging viewers’ notions of immortality, sexuality, and destiny.—
Roxana Hadadi,
Vulture,
25 Oct. 2025
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But Larry, a true cynic, was stuck in a different time, gagged and bound by a tireless insistence on creating art that subverted and satirized those same good old-fashioned family values.—
Michael Cuby,
Them.,
24 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Debauch.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/debauch. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.
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