How to Use demean in a Sentence

demean

verb
  • There is no up side to demeaning our friends.
    — Sarah Fortinsky, The Hill, 6 Jan. 2026
  • And Max will not stop demeaning him.
    — Rafaela Bassili, Vulture, 7 Oct. 2025
  • Y’all the only era that feel like demeaning the dead and saying that sh*t is cool, my ni**a.
    — Demicia Inman, VIBE.com, 3 Sep. 2019
  • The shrine is Canton is demeaned and the Class of ‘26 stained.
    — Greg Cote february 1, Miami Herald, 1 Feb. 2026
  • When we are being assaulted by a system designed to demean and do us harm?
    — Nancy Armour, USA TODAY, 24 June 2022
  • That’s another lazy phrase that demeans the dynamic of sport.
    — Tim Ellis, Forbes.com, 11 Aug. 2025
  • They were being demeaned for that, or devalued for that in this critical time.
    — Julia Bonavita, FOXNews.com, 16 Nov. 2025
  • Even worse, the guidelines gave room for chatbots to demean people by race and spread false medical claims.
    — Kurt Knutsson, FOXNews.com, 21 Aug. 2025
  • Not that Purdy would ever demean a teammate in public.
    — Jerry McDonald, Mercury News, 18 Jan. 2026
  • The Kumbaya factor has made the award look so PC as to be demeaning.
    — John Mariani, Forbes, 3 May 2023
  • Like me, Tommy would have looked to the culture around him to learn the language of demeaning women.
    — Literary Hub, 8 Oct. 2025
  • Officials at the university denied that the move was meant to demean her.
    — Washington Post, 3 Jan. 2021
  • Its goal was to fight back by demeaning Korean men in ways that mirrored the rhetoric on sites like Ilbe.
    — Min Joo Lee, Fortune, 15 May 2023
  • For one thing, Lucy can’t even get off anymore without being actively demeaned.
    — Kathleen Walsh, Vulture, 14 Jan. 2026
  • To name a sports team after an ethnicity is to demean the ethnicity.
    — Nicholas Frankovich, National Review, 24 July 2021
  • Dougla was once a racist, abusive word used to demean those with Indian and African ancestry.
    — Nadine Drummond, SELF, 7 Nov. 2020
  • Swift has no issue taking shots at the media and fans who use her relationships as a way to demean and excoriate her.
    — Maureen Lee Lenker Published, EW.com, 14 Aug. 2025
  • Because he was being completely bullied and demeaned and excused.
    — Joey Nolfi, Entertainment Weekly, 25 June 2026
  • After the problems came to a head last month, he was placed on leave and has been ridiculed and demeaned by local officials for his conduct, Burke said.
    — Nick Stoico, BostonGlobe.com, 11 Sep. 2023
  • Racists dismissed them as lesser beings, demeaned them and made life hard for all people of color — whites-only facilities and hard jobs.
    — Letters To The Editor, The Orlando Sentinel, 29 May 2026
  • Most frustratingly, the secret traitor demeans us, the audience.
    — Raven Smith, Vogue, 9 Jan. 2026
  • In fact, the seating arrangement in the Great Hall of the People with Xi at the head of the table was demeaning.
    — Andrew Mark Miller, Fox News, 20 June 2023
  • The former President has always been willing to use insults and personal mockery to demean his enemies.
    — Stephen Collinson, CNN, 13 May 2021
  • What once was aberrant—indeed, unimaginable—is now standard Trump fare, demeaning not only to the Presidency but to the rule of law.
    — Ruth Marcus, New Yorker, 9 Oct. 2025
  • Great leaders demand excellence without demeaning their people.
    — Johnny C. Taylor Jr, USA Today, 14 Oct. 2025
  • Despite this and other traumas omitted here, Perry swore to provide for his mother Maxine, as well as the man who’d mistreated and demeaned him all those years.
    — Peter Debruge, Variety, 28 Oct. 2023
  • But demeaning our brand through association with vulgar demagogues is a losing strategy.
    — Alma Hernandez, New York Daily News, 1 May 2026
  • Accusations of voter fraud historically were designed to demean the standing of people of color as citizens and to frame their use of the right to vote as dangerous.
    — Atiba Ellis, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 6 Nov. 2020
  • Her grandmother Zahra, an old crone of a woman who cruelly spits out words to demean her daughter and granddaughter with little regard for their feelings, had always forbid them.
    — Manuel Betancourt, Variety, 17 Nov. 2023
  • Their unofficial role was to do media appearances and work on messaging behind the scenes to demean the House manager's case against the president to the public.
    — Savannah Behrmann, USA TODAY, 27 Aug. 2020

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'demean.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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