deprecate

UK/ˈdɛpɹɪkeɪt/US/ˈdɛp.rɪˌkeɪt/

verbC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,682 of 15,258Too rare in one of the two pools to compare — fewer than 20 uses in speech or in writing

Other forms: deprecated, deprecating, deprecates

To deprecate is to express disapproval of something. Deprecate the practice, self-deprecating humour, deprecate the tone.

In computing it has a precise sense, since a deprecated feature still works but is marked for removal. Keep it apart from depreciate, which is a fall in value.

Definitions of deprecate

1verbdeprecateTo express disapproval of something.C2
“The committee was careful to deprecate the practice without banning it.”

deprecate is a disapproving.

Where it comes from

Latin deprecari means to pray against, from de plus precari, to pray: to ask that something be averted.

Proto-Indo-European
*preḱ-
Latin
dēprecātus
English, today
deprecate

Latin dēprecātus, perfect active participle of dēprecor (“to pray against (a present or impending evil) (see -ate), pray for, intercede for (that which is in danger), rarely imprecate”), from dē- + precor.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

deprecate in the wild

By announcing a new tax break state budget possibly deprecate some of their revenues from collecting taxes.
Tax break
Support for the a.out format was deprecated in Linux kernel version 5.1, and support for the format was removed across the 5.18 and 5.19 kernel releases.
A.out
In May 2008, HAL developer David Zeuthen announced his intention to deprecate HAL, mainly because of its complexity and redundancy with other libraries in the Linux environment.
DeviceKit
In September 2017 Maxeda announced that they would deprecate the Formido brand and replace the stores with the Praxis formula.
Formido (store)

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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