How to use downgrade in a sentence

21 example sentences · noun, verb

Downgrade means a reduction of a rating, as a financial or credit rating. Example: “The stock was downgraded from ‘buy’ to ‘sell’.”

Examples of downgrade by meaning

verbTo place lower in position.

The stock was downgraded from ‘buy’ to ‘sell’.
From Salisbury westwards, it's largely single-track since British Rail downgraded it in 1967.2025 February 5, Philip Haigh, “Where track and train integration will be put to the test”, in RAIL, number 1028, page 51

verbTo disparage.

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".1978 April 29, Cindy Rizzo, “Unity of Divergence”, in Gay Community News, page 4
Without downgrading my friends in the Building Trades, driving a nail or sawing a board is relatively simple.1981, King Royer, Construction Manager in the 80's, page 278

More sentences with downgrade

I found myself underemployed when the company downgraded me from full-time to part-time.From the entry underemployed
To help prevent a runaway caused by brake fade, heavy trucks are required to stop at the top of the downgrade to give their brakes time to cool.From the entry brake fade
These methods will NOT downgrade your baseband or reunlock your phone.2007 October 9, Bi0, “iPhone....pitanje”, in hr.comp.mac (Usenet). From the entry reunlock
Thus, she may have prevented some passersby from justifying their own nondonating behavior by downgrading the charity.1970, Jacqueline Macaulay, Leonard Berkowitz, Altruism and helping behavior. From the entry nondonating
In order to mount a weapon of mundicidal means, shielding capabilities would have to be downgraded to a rudimentary level.2008 November 25, Michael Reaves, Steve Perry, Death Star: Star Wars Legends, Random House Worlds, →ISBN, page 17. From the entry mundicidal
Reattribution can upgrade a work as well as downgrade it.1994, John E. Conklin, Art Crime, Bloomsbury, →ISBN, page 54. From the entry reattribution
The ECB is now buying corporate bonds that are close to junk, and the haircuts can barely deal with a one-notch credit downgrade.2016, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, “Euro 'house of cards' to collapse, warns ECB prophet”, in The Telegraph. From the entry collateral
The state of emergency was eventually called off, threat levels downgraded from “red” to “orange,” and even the click-baitiest of headlines became more subdued.2014 August 29, Tómas Gabríel Benjamin, “Schrödinger’s Volcano”, in The Reykjavík Grapevine, archived from the original on 03 Sep 2014. From the entry click-baity
Belbin said the difference between gold and silver could have been their downgraded twizzle, a multirotational turn on one foot while gliding across the ice.2009 March 29, Juliet Macur, “Russian Ice Dancers Take Gold and Aim for Vancouver”, in New York Times. From the entry multirotational
In all of the cases, it was assumed that the MR severity was downgraded by general anesthesia because of reduced afterload conditions.2005, Schroder JN, Williams ML, Hata JA, Muhlbaier LH, Swaminathan M, Mathew JP, Glower DD, O'Connor CM, Smith PK, Milano CA, Impact of…. From the entry trace
Like most storms, Hurricane Katrina weakened as it came onshore, and by Monday evening the National Hurricane Center had downgraded it to a tropical storm.2005 August 29, Joseph B. Treasterand Kate Zernike, “Hurricane Katrina Moves Onshore, Weaker but Still Threatening Havoc”, in The New York…. From the entry onshore
Men compete with one another (thus the sports talk), but they control the anxieties associated with competition by downgrading the prize they all want—women.1988, Larry Hirschhorn, The Workplace Within: Psychodynamics of Organizational Life, pages 130–131. From the entry locker room talk
Landowners cannot afford to cut submerchantable trees, yet many hesitate to cut merchantable dominants and codominants at the risk of downgrading the residual stand.1966, John R. Bassett, Thinning loblolly pine from above and below, New Orleans, La: Southern Forest Experiment Station. From the entry dominant
Running again in more open agricultural country, the Harrogate line encounters a short downgrade before the stiff uphill grind to Harrogate begins.1961 February, D. Bertram, “The lines to Wetherby and their traffic”, in Trains Illustrated, page 101. From the entry grind
If today’s capitalists are mere lazy rentiers who contribute nothing to the production process, don’t they deserve to be downgraded to the status of feudal landlords?2022 April 13, Evgeny Morozov, “Critique of Techno-Feudal Reason”, in New Left Review, number 133/134, pages 89–126. From the entry rentier
Overall, the downgrading has favored FBB and, in particular, whiteback folding boxboard, which can offer a very good whiteness and therefore good print qualities compared with SBB .1997, PIMA's, page 21. From the entry whiteback
Either the bird will be downgraded to "threatened" status—which means it can be hunted—or it will be declared a nonspecies, as has already happened to all its taxonomic kissing cousins.1981 September, George Reiger, “Conservation: What’s in a Name?”, in Field & Stream, volume LXXXVI, number 5, New York, N.Y.: CBS…. From the entry kissing cousin

Meaning of downgrade

noun A reduction of a rating, as a financial or credit rating.
noun A downhill gradient on a road or railway.
noun A reduction in quality; a descent towards an inferior state.

Full definition of downgrade

Questions about downgrade in a sentence

How do you use downgrade in a sentence?: Downgrade is used as a noun and verb. For example: “The stock was downgraded from ‘buy’ to ‘sell’.”
What is a short sentence with downgrade?: “The stock was downgraded from ‘buy’ to ‘sell’.”
What does downgrade mean?: Downgrade means a reduction of a rating, as a financial or credit rating.

Adapted from Wiktionary: downgrade (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use downgrade in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/downgrade. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.