Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.
déclassé (adj.), declass (v.)
The adjective is a borrowed French word, one in which we retain the two acute accent marks when we write it and also attempt something like the French sounds when we pronounce it: DAI-klah-SAI. It means “having lost social status, of inferior class or rank.” A related but in English an older word is the verb declass, meaning “to reduce in class status.” This one is fully anglicized, with no acute accents and with only two syllables: dee-KLAS.
