embasement

Noun

embasement (countable and uncountable, plural embasements)

1. (obsolete) The act of bringing down; lowering or deterioration.
   • It is true that now and then, in all Centuries from the Beginning of the World, there have appear’d some Persons of a Nature more refin’d, as if indeed (according to that Phancy of the Old Poets) some Prometheus had made them either of another Metall, or of another Temper, from the Vulgar, utterly...1664, Richard Davis, “The Publisher to the Reader” in Robert Boyle, Some Considerations Touching the Usefulnesse of Experimental Naturall Philosophy, Oxford, 2nd edition
   • There is dross, alloy, and embasement in all human tempers; and he flieth without wings, who thinks to find ophir or pure metal in any.1716, Thomas Browne, edited by Samuel Johnson, Christian Morals, 2nd edition, London: J. Payne, published 1756, Part I, p. 43

   Synonyms:

   debasement