To corrupt and undermine the morals of; to destroy or lessen the effect of moral principles on.--Webster. Like the preceding, this word has a place in Todd's Johnson, where it is noticed as a word of late introduction into our language. Professor Lyell, who visited Dr. Webster, says, "When the Dr. was asked how many words he had coined for his dictionary, he replied, only one, 'to demoralize,' and that not for his dictionary, but in a pamphlet published in the last century."--Travels in the U. States, p. 53. Mr. Jodrell, in his "Philology of the English Language," gives the word a place, and cites as an example, a passage from a speech by Lord Liverpool, in the House of Lords, March 11, 1817:
They had endeavored to guard and protect the people against the attempts which were made to corrupt and demoralize them.
The native vigor of the soul must wholly disappear, under the steady influence and the demoralizing example of profligate power and prosperous crime.--Walsh, Letters on France.