Demean

//ˌdiːˈmiːn// noun, verb

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Management; treatment. obsolete, transitive, uncountable, usually

    "Pursu'd him streight, in mynd to bene ywroken / Of all the vile demeane, and vsage bad"

  2. 2
    demesne. transitive
  3. 3
    Behavior; conduct; bearing; demeanor. obsolete, transitive, uncountable, usually

    "‘When thou hast all this doen, then bring me newes / Of his demeane […].’"

  4. 4
    resources; means. transitive
Verb
  1. 1
    To debase; to lower; to degrade. transitive

    "It was, of course, Mrs. Sedley's opinion that her son would demean himself by a marriage with an artist's daughter."

  2. 2
    To manage; to conduct; to treat. obsolete, transitive

    "But now, as our obdurate clergy have with violence demeaned the matter."

  3. 3
    To subtract the mean from (a value, or every observation in a data set). transitive

    "Concerning FE estimation, it makes no difference whether you demean the data with unit-specific means computed on (balanced) T observations per unit, or with unit-specific means computed on (unbalanced) Tᵢ observations per unit."

  4. 4
    reduce in worth or character, usually verbally wordnet
  5. 5
    To humble; to humiliate. transitive
Show 2 more definitions
  1. 6
    To conduct; to behave; to comport; followed by the reflexive pronoun. archaic, transitive

    "they have demean'd themselves Like men born to renown by life or death."

  2. 7
    To mortify. transitive

Etymology

Etymology 1

(1595) From de- + mean (“lowly, base, common”), from Middle English mene, aphetic variation of imene (“mean, base, common”), from Old English ġemǣne (“mean, common”). Compare English bemean.

Etymology 2

From Middle English demenen, demeinen, from Anglo-Norman demener, from Old French demener, from de- + mener (“to conduct, lead”), from Latin mināre, from minārī (“to threaten”).

Etymology 3

From Middle English demenen, demeinen, from Anglo-Norman demener, from Old French demener, from de- + mener (“to conduct, lead”), from Latin mināre, from minārī (“to threaten”).

Etymology 4

Variant of demesne.

Etymology 5

de- + mean

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