Definition of "pejorate" [pejorate]

• To make worse; to deteriorate or to worsen. (verb)

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• "Only later did it pejorate to mean illegitimate offspring."
• "Slaves also pejorate the families that use them; the white children become proud, disgusted with labor, and, being educated in idleness, are rendered unfit to get"
• ""Pejorate," to make worse, is still an unusual and stilted word: Franklin in the first edition of the "Canada Pamphlet" in the "observations concerning the increase of mankind, etc," omitted in the second 'edition used the word in the sentence, "Slaves also pejorate the families that use them.""