Degradation

punishment tn the ecclestastical law, is a censure by which a clergyman is deprived of his holy orders, which he had as a priest or deacon. - DEGREE, descents. This word is derived from the French degré, which is itself taken from the Latin gradus, and aignifies literally a step in a stair-way, or the round of a ladder. Figuratively applied and as it is understood in law, it is the distance between those who are allied by blood; it means the relations descending from a common ancestor from generation to generation, as by so many steps. Each generation lengthens the line of descent one de! gree, for the degrees are only the generations marked in a line by written. Vide Consanguinity, Line, and also Ayliff’s Parergon, 209; Toull. Dr. Civ. Fran. liv.

3, t. 1, ¢. 3, n. 158.