(degrees)
Frequency: The word is one of the 1500 most common words in English.
1.
You use degree to indicate the extent to which something happens or is the case, or the amount which something is felt.
These man-made barriers will ensure a very high degree of protection...
Politicians have used television with varying degrees of success.
N-COUNT: with supp, usu N of n
•
If something has a degree of a particular quality, it has a small but significant amount of that quality.
Their wages do, however, allow them a degree of independence...
PHRASE: PHR n
2.
A degree is a unit of measurement that is used to measure temperatures. It is often written as °, for example 23°.
It's over 80 degrees outside...
N-COUNT: usu num N
3.
A degree is a unit of measurement that is used to measure angles, and also longitude and latitude. It is often written as °, for example 23°.
It was pointing outward at an angle of 45 degrees.
N-COUNT: usu num N
4.
A degree at a university or college is a course of study that you take there, or the qualification that you get when you have passed the course.
He took a master's degree in economics at Yale.
...the first year of a degree course.
N-COUNT: usu with supp
5.
6.
If something happens by degrees, it happens slowly and gradually.
The crowd in Robinson's Coffee-House was thinning, but only by degrees.
= gradually
PHRASE
7.
You use expressions such as to some degree, to a large degree, or to a certain degree in order to indicate that something is partly true, but not entirely true.
These statements are, to some degree, all correct.
PHRASE: PHR with cl [vagueness]
8.
You use expressions such as to what degree and to the degree that when you are discussing how true a statement is, or in what ways it is true.
To what degree would you say you had control over things that went on?...
= to what extent, to the extent that
PHRASE [vagueness]