deprecate
American Heritage Dictionary:
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dep·re·cate
(dĕp'rĭ-kāt') 
tr.v., -cat·ed, -cat·ing, -cates.
deprecation dep're·ca'tion n.
deprecator dep're·ca'tor n.
tr.v., -cat·ed, -cat·ing, -cates.
- To express disapproval of; deplore.
- To belittle; depreciate.
- Computer Science. To mark (a component of a software standard) as obsolete to warn against its use in the future so that it may be phased out.
[Latin dēprecārī, dēprecāt-, to ward off by prayer : dē-, de- + precārī, to pray.]
deprecatingly dep're·cat'ing·ly adv.deprecation dep're·ca'tion n.
deprecator dep're·ca'tor n.
USAGE NOTE Deprecate originally meant "to pray in order to ward off something, ward off by prayer." Perhaps because the occasion of such prayers was invariably one of dread, the word developed the more general meaning of disapproval, as in this quotation from Frederick Douglass, "Those who profess to favor freedom, yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground." From here it was a small step to add the meaning "to make little of, disparage," what was once the proper meaning of depreciate. This meaning of depreciate appears to have been overwhelmed by the word's use in the world of finances, where it means "to diminish (or cause to diminish) in price or value." In similar fashion, the "disparage" sense of deprecate may be driving out the word's other uses. In our 2002 survey, only 50 percent of the Usage Panel accepted deprecate when it meant "to express disapproval of" in the sentence He advocates a well-designed program of behavior modification and deprecates the early use of medication to address behavioral problems. Moreover, a similar example in the same survey elicited the same split in opinions among Panelists: He acknowledged that some students had been wronged by the board's handling of the matter and deprecated the board's decision to intervene. It seems clear, then, that the Panel has very mixed feelings about the use of deprecate to mean "disapprove of." But a great majority of Panelists accept deprecate when used to mean "make little of, disparage." Fully 78 percent accepted the example He deprecated his own contribution to the success of the project, claiming that others had done just as much. It may be that the widespread use of the word in the compound adjective self-deprecating has helped bolster this use of the verb.
Fowler's Modern English Usage:
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deprecate, depreciate
1. The two words are similar in form and in current use overlap somewhat in meaning, but their origin is different. Deprecate is from Latin deprecari 'to prevent by prayer' and its primary current meaning is 'to express disapproval of (a person or thing)':
When news of this 'record' multiple birth emerged last weekend, few dared to deprecate it—Sunday Times, 1987.Depreciate is from Latin depretiare 'to lower in value' and currently means (1) without an object, 'to become lower in value or price'
(Experience has shown me that their cars are more reliable and depreciate less—Mail on Sunday, 1985), and (2) with an object, 'to undervalue, to disparage'
(Before this Wilde depreciated pity as a motive in art; now he embraced it—R. Ellmann, 1969).It is in this last meaning that the overlap in meaning occurs, the intruder normally being deprecate in place of depreciate:
Dealers have felt a need to deprecate their own firms' values, to disassociate themselves from them—A. Davidson, 1989
A talent that results in giving exquisite pleasure to collectors of memorabilia is to be admired, not deprecated—M. J. Staples, 1992.As a result depreciate is being more and more confined to its financial meaning in relation to currencies, share values, etc.
2. This intrusion on the part of deprecate is reflected in the derivative adjectives self-deprecating and self-deprecatory meaning 'disparaging oneself', and the noun self-deprecation, where the meanings are closer to depreciate than deprecate:
Barton...smiled, and then his face changed again, the old, self-deprecating expression over it—Susan Hill, 1971
Sadly he declined, saying in a charmingly self-deprecatory way that he doubted he had any views worth hearing—L. Kennedy, 1990
She may arguably be the most successful female chef in Britain, but her modesty and self-deprecation is more akin to that of a fish-and-chip shop-owner—Scotsman, 2007.These forms and uses are now fully established, although self-depreciation is also occasionally found:
She [George Eliot] wrote of her 'isolation' or 'excommunication' from the world and she was prone to morbid self-depreciation—Times, 1996.
| depot, depositary, depository, dependence, dependency | |
| deprivation, derisive, derisory, descendant, descendent |
Computer Desktop Encyclopedia:
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deprecate
To make invalid or obsolete by removing or flagging the item. When commands or statements in a language are planned for deletion in future releases of the compiler or rendering engine, they are said to be deprecated. Programmers should begin to remove them from the source code in subsequent revisions of their programs. See flagging and nugatory.
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Roget's Thesaurus:
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deprecate
verb
- To have or express an unfavorable opinion of: disapprove, discountenance, disesteem, disfavor, frown on (or upon), object. Idioms: hold no brief for, not go for, take a dim view of, take exception to. See like/dislike.
- To think, represent, or speak of as small or unimportant: belittle, decry, denigrate, depreciate, derogate, detract, discount, disparage, downgrade, minimize, run down, slight, talk down. Idioms: makelightlittleof. See attack/defend, show/hide.
Antonyms by Answers.com:
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deprecate
v
Definition: belittle, condemn
Antonyms: approve, build up, commend, compliment, endorse, laud, praise
Word Tutor:
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deprecate
IN BRIEF: To express disapproval of or regret for.
His self-deprecating nature grew tiresome.
Tutor's tip: If you "deprecate" (to disapprove or to speak critically) someone else's abilities you might "depreciate" (to reduce the value of something) their ability to contribute to the project.
LearnThatWord.com is a free vocabulary and spelling program where you only pay for results!
Random House Word Menu:
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categories related to 'deprecate'
- Disapproval, Disrespect, and Denial - deprecate: (vb) express earnest disapproval of; belittle
See crossword solutions for the clue Wikipedia on Answers.com:
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Deprecation
Not to be confused with Depreciation.
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Look up deprecate in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
In the process of authoring computer software, its standards or documentation, or other technical standards, deprecation is a status applied to features, characteristics, or practices to indicate that they should be avoided, typically because they have been superseded.
Although deprecated software features remain in the software, their use may raise warning messages recommending alternative practices, and deprecation may indicate that the feature will be removed in the future. Features are deprecated—rather than immediately removed—in order to provide backward compatibility, and give programmers who have used the feature time to bring their code into compliance with the new standard.
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Contents
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Etymology
In mainstream English, the infinitive "to deprecate" means, simply, "to strongly disapprove of (something)". It derives from the Latin verb deprecare, meaning "to ward off (a disaster) by prayer". Thus, for a standard document to state that a feature is deprecated is merely a recommendation against using it. It is still possible to produce a program or product without heeding the deprecation; but to the extent that conformance with latest standards is a requirement of the buyer (that is, a condition of payment), it may not be acceptable to fail to conform.
Reasons for deprecation
Programmers or standards-makers may choose to deprecate a feature for any number of reasons. Some common cases are:
- The feature has been replaced by a more powerful, alternative feature. For instance, the Linux kernel contains two modules to communicate with Windows networks —
smbfsandcifs. The latter provides better security, supports more protocol features and integrates better with the rest of the kernel. Since the inclusion ofcifs,smbfshas been deprecated. - The feature contains a design flaw—frequently a security flaw—and so should be avoided, but existing code depends upon it. The C standard function
gets()is an example of this, because using this function can introduce a buffer overflow into the program that uses it.[1] The Java API methodsThread.stop,.suspendand.resumeare further examples.[2] - The feature is considered extraneous, and will be removed in the future in order to simplify the system as a whole. Early versions of the Web markup language HTML included a
FONTelement, to allow page designers to specify the font in which text should be displayed. With the release of Cascading Style Sheets and HTML 4.0, theFONTelement became extraneous, and detracted from the benefits of noting structural markup in HTML and graphical formatting in CSS. Thus, theFONTelement was deprecated in the Transitional HTML 4.0 standard, and eliminated in the Strict variant. - A future version of the software is planned to make major structural changes, which make it impossible (or impractical) to support older features. For instance, when Apple Inc. planned the transition from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X, it created a subset of the older system's API which would support most programs with minor changes. This became the Carbon library, available in both Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X. Programmers who were, at the time, chiefly using Mac OS 9, could ensure that their programs would run natively on Mac OS X by using only the API functions in Carbon. Other Mac OS 9 functions were deprecated, and were never supported natively in Mac OS X.
- Standardization or increased consistency in naming. Projects that are developed over long periods of time, or by multiple individuals or groups, can contain inconsistencies in the naming of various items. These can be the result of a lack of foresight, changes in nomenclature over time, or personal, regional or educational differences in terminology. Since merely renaming an item would break backwards compatibility, the existing name must be left in place. The original name will likely remain indefinitely, but will be deprecated to encourage use of the newer, more consistent naming convention. An example would be an API that alternately used the spelling "color" and "colour". Standardization would result in the use of only one of the regional spellings throughout, and all occurrences of the other spelling would be deprecated.
- A feature that once was only available independently is now combined with its co-feature. An example being VLC Media Player, VLC used to stand for 'VideoLan Client' and a 'VideoLan Server' was available as its co-feature. Both the client and server became available in the same package, and as such, getting one independently would be impractical.
Other usage
A particular term or expression may be deprecated when the term becomes obsolete, essentially superfluous and either has no meaning or serves no purpose and becomes essentially empty verbiage.
For example, in copyright, it was common to comply with the terms of the Buenos Aires Convention treaty by including a statement of rights such as all rights reserved, however, once every country that was a signatory to the Buenos Aires Convention also became a signatory to the Berne Convention treaty (because Berne does not require any form of notice), the use of the term "all rights reserved" has been essentially deprecated, as it no longer serves any purpose and grants no additional right or protection not already available if the statement were never used. In this instance, deprecated is a better term to describe the condition than obsolete.
An example in paleontology would be Brontosaurus, a synonym of the genus Apatosaurus.[3]
See also
- Abandonware
- Orphaned technology
- Self-deprecation, a type of humor
References
- ^ GNU. "Line Input". The GNU C Library. GNU. http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Line-Input.html#Line-Input. Retrieved 2008-08-02. "Deprecated function: char * gets (char *s). ... The
getsfunction is very dangerous because it provides no protection against overflowing the strings. The GNU library includes it for compatibility only. You should always usefgetsorgetlineinstead." - ^ "Java Thread Primitive Deprecation". Oracle. http://download.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/technotes/guides/concurrency/threadPrimitiveDeprecation.html. Retrieved 13 May 2011.
- ^ Upchurch, Paul; Barrett, Paul M., and Dodson, Peter. (2004). "Sauropoda". In Weishampel, David B.; Dodson, Peter; and Osmólska, Halszka. (eds.). The Dinosauria (2nd ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 259–322. ISBN 0-520-24209-2.
External links
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Look up deprecation in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
- How and When To Deprecate APIs from the JDK 5.0 Documentation
- Detect deprecated functions A tool that discovers deprecated functions in any Windows native application or library.
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
Translations:
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Deprecate
Dansk (Danish)
v. tr. - frabede sig, fraråde på det kraftigste, afvende ved bøn
Nederlands (Dutch)
afkeuren, ernstig pleiten tegen
Français (French)
v. tr. - désapprouver, réprouver
Deutsch (German)
v. - mißbilligen, abzuwenden suchen
Ελληνική (Greek)
v. - αποδοκιμάζω, επικρίνω
Português (Portuguese)
v. - desaprovar
Español (Spanish)
v. tr. - desaprobar, depreciar, protestar en contra, lamentar
Svenska (Swedish)
v. - ogilla, ta avstånd från, undanbe sig
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
声明不赞成, 反对, 抨击
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
v. tr. - 聲明不贊成, 反對, 抨擊
한국어 (Korean)
v. tr. - 천하게 여기다, 반대하다, (분노 등을) 피하기를 바라다
日本語 (Japanese)
v. - 反対を唱える, 非難する
العربيه (Arabic)
(فعل) يستنكر, يقلل من قدر أو أهميه شئ
עברית (Hebrew)
v. tr. - גינה, לא ראה בעין יפה, הביע התנגדות
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