Demote

//dɪˈməʊt// verb

verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To lower the rank or status of. transitive

    "James was demoted from branch manager to assistant manager due to his poor discipline."

  2. 2
    assign to a lower position; reduce in rank wordnet
  3. 3
    To relegate. transitive

Synonyms

All synonyms
relegateabaseabasebootbouncebreak

Example

More examples

"Oh, you! If you go around with a face like that, I'll have to demote you back down to 'friend' again."

Etymology

From de- (“down”) + promote (“advance in rank/status (ending abstracted)”).

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