Sentence examples for defining down from inspiring English sources
First, in any high-stakes summit, the laws of diplomatic physics create momentum that drives leaders to reach a "declaration" or "accord," even if it means defining down success.
His addictive phrase spawned a cottage industry thereafter of things the country has been "defining down". But I'd wager that if Moynihan were here today he'd agree that the way we're defining democracy itself down is among the most depressing collapses we face.
"Defining down" what constitutes drunk driving serves MADD by exaggerating just how many drunk people get behind the wheel.
Whether Republicans or Democrats predominate, wealthy elites rule and the financial-medical-military-fossil-fuel-industrial complexes prevail, effectively defining down democracy, the middle class, education, health care - all in service of the huge upward transfer of wealth and power.
But if you look past their soaring rhetoric, you'll see globe-trotting university presidents and trustees who are defining down their expectations of what a liberal education means, much as corporations do when they look the other way at shoddy labor and environmental practices abroad.
The McDonnell case follows a recent pattern of defining down corruption in campaign finance cases as well.
But to intentionally define down in some kind of wild populism, that those things don't count in a complicated, dangerous world — that's dangerous in itself.
Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a right-leaning thinktank, wrote in a new paper that the US ought to "define down success" as a marginalized Isis that can no longer conquer or hold territory.
Add in stricter environmental laws and society's increasingly litigious tendencies, and the result is Nimby defined down so that almost any irritant is a fair reason to tie a community in knots.
Clinton "defined down what rich was," says Leonard Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center.
But by the time it came back around again in the 80s, everything was very defined, down to the width of your braces, the turn-up on your boots, and how many holes you had in your Dr. Martens.
