1. To take away; to belittle or seek to lower by suggesting that something or someone is not important or worthy of respect: To derogate a person’s authority is to undermine it, and to derogate someone’s rights is to restrict them.

The queen felt that summoning a parliament would derogate her royal authority.

The book derogated the achievements of the former president of the company.

Jim, the coach, derogated just about everything the new player, Dudley, did on the football field.

2. To stray from a standard or expectation; to deviate: Jason committed an intellectual error that will derogate his reputation as a scholar.