Degrow

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To become smaller; to shrink. intransitive

    "They can eat vast amounts when times are good, and can even ‘degrow’ when food is scarce, consuming their own body mass very slowly, with no ill-effects."

  2. 2
    To make (something) smaller, to reduce. transitive

    "It seems likely that wealthy countries in Western Europe and North America need to degrow their economies before establishing a steady state."

Example

More examples

"They can eat vast amounts when times are good, and can even ‘degrow’ when food is scarce, consuming their own body mass very slowly, with no ill-effects."

Etymology

From de- + grow.

More for "degrow"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.