[syn: reduced, rock-bottom]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Reduce \Re*duce"\ (r[-e]*d[=u]s"), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Reduced
(-d[=u]st"),; p. pr. & vb. n. Reducing (-d[=u]"s[i^]ng).]
[L. reducere, reductum; pref. red-. re-, re- + ducere to
lead. See Duke, and cf. Redoubt, n.]
1. To bring or lead back to any former place or condition.
[Obs.]
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And to his brother's house reduced his wife.
--Chapman.
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The sheep must of necessity be scattered, unless the
great Shephered of souls oppose, or some of his
delegates reduce and direct us. --Evelyn.
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2. To bring to any inferior state, with respect to rank,
size, quantity, quality, value, etc.; to diminish; to
lower; to degrade; to impair; as, to reduce a sergeant to
the ranks; to reduce a drawing; to reduce expenses; to
reduce the intensity of heat. "An ancient but reduced
family." --Sir W. Scott.
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Nothing so excellent but a man may fasten upon
something belonging to it, to reduce it.
--Tillotson.
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Having reduced
Their foe to misery beneath their fears. --Milton.
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Hester Prynne was shocked at the condition to which
she found the clergyman reduced. --Hawthorne.
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3. To bring to terms; to humble; to conquer; to subdue; to
capture; as, to reduce a province or a fort.
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4. To bring to a certain state or condition by grinding,
pounding, kneading, rubbing, etc.; as, to reduce a
substance to powder, or to a pasty mass; to reduce fruit,
wood, or paper rags, to pulp.
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It were but right
And equal to reduce me to my dust. --Milton.
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5. To bring into a certain order, arrangement,
classification, etc.; to bring under rules or within
certain limits of descriptions and terms adapted to use in
computation; as, to reduce animals or vegetables to a
class or classes; to reduce a series of observations in
astronomy; to reduce language to rules.
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6. (Arith.)
(a) To change, as numbers, from one denomination into
another without altering their value, or from one
denomination into others of the same value; as, to
reduce pounds, shillings, and pence to pence, or to
reduce pence to pounds; to reduce days and hours to
minutes, or minutes to days and hours.
(b) To change the form of a quantity or expression without
altering its value; as, to reduce fractions to their
lowest terms, to a common denominator, etc.
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7. (Chem.) To add an electron to an atom or ion.
Specifically: To remove oxygen from; to deoxidize.
(Metallurgy) To bring to the metallic state by separating
from combined oxygen and impurities; as, metals are
reduced from their ores. (Chem.) To combine with, or to
subject to the action of, hydrogen or any other reducing
agent; as, ferric iron is reduced to ferrous iron;
aldehydes can be reduced to alcohols by lithium hydride;
-- opposed to oxidize.
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8. (Med.) To restore to its proper place or condition, as a
displaced organ or part; as, to reduce a dislocation, a
fracture, or a hernia.
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Reduced iron (Chem.), metallic iron obtained through
deoxidation of an oxide of iron by exposure to a current
of hydrogen or other reducing agent. When hydrogen is used
the product is called also iron by hydrogen.
To reduce an equation (Alg.), to bring the unknown quantity
by itself on one side, and all the known quantities on the
other side, without destroying the equation.
To reduce an expression (Alg.), to obtain an equivalent
expression of simpler form.
To reduce a square (Mil.), to reform the line or column
from the square.
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Syn: To diminish; lessen; decrease; abate; shorten; curtail;
impair; lower; subject; subdue; subjugate; conquer.
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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
reduced
adj 1: made less in size or amount or degree [syn: decreased,
reduced] [ant: increased]
2: well below normal (especially in price) [syn: reduced,
rock-bottom]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
133 Moby Thesaurus words for "reduced":
abated, ablated, adulterated, attenuated, badly off, bated,
belittled, best, bottom, bowed down, broken, brought down,
brought low, cachectic, conquered, consumed, contracted, crushed,
curtailed, cut, debased, debilitated, decreased, deflated,
depressed, diluted, diminished, dissipated, distressed,
domesticated, down to bedrock, downcast, downthrown, drained,
dropped, embarrassed, enervated, eroded, exhausted, failing,
fallen, feeble, feeling the pinch, felled, flattened, frail,
giveaway, half-price, hard up, healthless, housebroke, housebroken,
humbled, humiliated, ill off, impecunious, in Queer Street,
in narrow circumstances, in poor health, in reduced circumstances,
in straitened circumstances, in the dust, infirm, invalid,
land-poor, languishing, less, lesser, low, lower, lowered, lowest,
made to grovel, marked down, mastered, miniaturized, moribund,
narrow, on the edge, out of pocket, pale, peaked, peaky, pinched,
poor, poorly off, prostrate, put down, quelled, rarefied,
reduced in health, retrenched, rock-bottom, run-down, sacrificial,
scaled-down, set down, shorn, short, short of cash, short of funds,
short of money, shorter, shrunk, shrunken, sickly, slashed,
smaller, smashed, squeezed, straitened, strapped, subdued,
subjugated, submerged, sunk, sunken, suppressed, tamed, thinned,
unhealthy, unmoneyed, unprosperous, unsound, valetudinarian,
valetudinary, vanquished, watered, watered-down, weakened, weakly,
with low resistance, worn