demean

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /dɪˈmiːn/
• Rhymes: -iːn

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

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.

Verb

demean (third-person singular simple present demeans, present participle demeaning, simple past and past participle demeaned)

1. To debase; to lower; to degrade.
   • 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 6, in Vanity Fair , London: Bradbury and Evans , published 1848, →OCLC:

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

2. To humble, humble oneself; to humiliate.
3. To mortify.

Synonyms

• debase
• lower
• degrade

Translations

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”).

Verb

demean (third-person singular simple present demeans, present participle demeaning, simple past and past participle demeaned)

1. (obsolete) To manage; to conduct; to treat.
   • 1644, John Milton, Areopagitica; a Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England, London: [s.n.], →OCLC:

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

2. (now rare) To conduct; to behave; to comport; followed by the reflexive pronoun.
   • c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, ”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

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

   • 1702–1704, Edward [Hyde, 1st] Earl of Clarendon, “(please specify |book=I to XVI)”, in The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, Begun in the Year 1641. , Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed at the Theater, published 1707, →OCLC:

     They answered […] that they should demean themselves according to their instructions.

Translations

Noun

demean (usually uncountable, plural demeans)

1. (obsolete) Management; treatment.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto VI”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 18:

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

2. (obsolete) Behavior; conduct; bearing; demeanor.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

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

   • 1739, Gilbert West, A canto of the Fairy Queen (later called On the Abuse of Travelling)

     with grave demean and solemn vanity

Translations

Related terms

• demeanor

Etymology 3

Variant of demesne.

Noun

demean (plural demeans)

1. demesne.
2. resources; means.

Translations

Etymology 4

de- +‎ mean

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌdiːˈmiːn/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

Verb

demean (third-person singular simple present demeans, present participle demeaning, simple past and past participle demeaned)

1. (statistics, transitive) To subtract the mean from (a value, or every observation in a data set).
   • 2013, Hans-Jürgen Andreß, Katrin Golsch, Alexander W. Schmidt, Applied Panel Data Analysis for Economic and Social Surveys‎, page 177:

     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) T_i observations per unit.

Anagrams

• Medean, Nadeem, amende, amened, dename, meaned