downgrade

From down- + grade.

• IPA^(key): (noun) /ˈdaʊnˌɡɹeɪd/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• IPA^(key): (verb) /ˌdaʊnˈɡɹeɪd/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: (verb) -eɪd
• Hyphenation: down‧grade

downgrade (plural downgrades)

1. A reduction of a rating, as a financial or credit rating.

   Antonym: upgrade

   Coordinate term: discount

2. A downhill gradient on a road or railway.
   • 1960 April, “English Electric diesels for the Sudan Railways”, in Trains Illustrated, page 218:

     [...] dynamic braking is fitted to the 99-ton, 55 ft.-long locomotives to help control these otherwise vacuum-braked trains on the long, continuous downgrades encountered on the coastal route.

3. A reduction in quality; a descent towards an inferior state.

   Coordinate term: comedown

   Near-synonyms: degradation, worsening, deterioration

downgrade (third-person singular simple present downgrades, present participle downgrading, simple past and past participle downgraded)

1. To place lower in position.

   Antonym: upgrade

   Coordinate term: discount

   The stock was downgraded from ‘buy’ to ‘sell’.

   • 2025 February 5, Philip Haigh, “Where track and train integration will be put to the test”, in RAIL, number 1028, page 51:

     Basingstoke-Exeter will test this. From Salisbury westwards, it's largely single-track since British Rail downgraded it in 1967. There's a ten-mile loop between Templecombe and Yeovil, as well as shorter loops at Chard, Axminster and Honiton.

2. To reduce in complexity, or remove unnecessary parts; to dumb down.
   • 2012 June 26, Genevieve Koski, “Music: Reviews: Justin Bieber: Believe”, in The A.V. Club‎^[1], archived from the original on 6 August 2020:

     More significantly, rigid deference to [Justin] Bieber’s still-young core fan base keeps things resolutely PG, with any acknowledgement of sex either couched in vague “touch your body” workarounds or downgraded to desirous hand-holding and eye-gazing.

3. (transitive) To disparage.

   Synonyms: degrade, demote, defame, reduce; see also Thesaurus:demean

   Coordinate terms: ruin, destroy

   • 1978 April 29, Cindy Rizzo, “Unity of Divergence”, in Gay Community News, page 4:

     We cannot afford to downgrade the lifestyles of other lesbians; we cannot afford to portray lesbians thinly as drunken and bothersome separatists who push their views on "work-within-the-movement" dykes".

   • 1981, King Royer, Construction Manager in the 80's, page 278:

     Without downgrading my friends in the Building Trades, driving a nail or sawing a board is relatively simple.

4. (meteorology) to reduce the official estimate of a storm's intensity.
5. (computing) To revert software back to an older version.

   Synonyms: restore, revert, roll back; see also Thesaurus:revert

• “downgrade”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

• dead wrong, dead-wrong, dog warden