demote, break, bust2, degrade, downgrade, reduce These verbs mean to lower in grade, rank, or status: was demoted from captain to lieutenant; a noncommissioned officer broken to the ranks; a detective who was busted to uniformed traffic patrol for insubordination; a supervisor degraded to an assistant; a popular author downgraded by critical opinion to a genre writer; was reduced from a command post to a desk job.
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