degree

Related to degree: degree of a polynomial, academic degree, Degree of comparison, Degree courses

by degrees

Gradually; in steps. I've been putting $50 aside every month to increase my savings account by degrees.
See also: by, degree

do a 180 degree turn

To make a big change in some area of one's life. If one physically turns 180 degrees, one will then be facing the opposite direction. A: "Can you believe that Sam quit his job at the firm?" B: "No, he really did a 180 degree turn on being a paralegal!"
See also: 180, degree, turn

get the third degree

To be interrogated, scrutinized, or questioned intensely or thoroughly by someone. My boyfriend is so controlling that I always get the third degree if I go anywhere or see anyone without him. I got the third degree from the police regarding my whereabouts during the crime.
See also: degree, get, third

give (someone) the third degree

To interrogate, scrutinize, or question someone intensely or thoroughly. My boyfriend is so controlling, always giving me the third degree if I go anywhere or see anyone without him. The police gave me the third degree regarding my whereabouts during the crime.
See also: degree, give, third

one degree under

Not completely well or healthy. I'm a lot better than I was on Friday, but I'm still feeling one degree under.
See also: degree, one

the third degree

Intense or thorough interrogation, scrutiny, or questioning. Kayla's boyfriend is so controlling, always giving her the third degree if she goes anywhere or sees anyone without him. I got the third degree from the police regarding my whereabouts during the crime.
See also: degree, third

to a certain degree

Somewhat; partly; in a limited way or to a limited extent. Your essay would be improved to a certain degree by tidying up your paragraphs, but your topic on the whole has some fundamental problems. Our administration is willing to negotiate to a certain degree, but we aren't ready to make any significant changes to the legislation.
See also: certain, degree

to a degree

Somewhat; partly; in a limited way or to a limited degree. Your essay would be improved to a degree by tidying up your paragraphs, but your topic on the whole has some fundamental problems. Our administration is willing to negotiate to a degree, but we aren't ready to make any significant changes to the legislation.
See also: degree

to some degree

Somewhat; partly; in a limited way or to a limited extent. Your essay would be improved to some degree by tidying up your paragraphs, but your topic on the whole has some fundamental problems. The administration is willing to negotiate to some degree, but it is not ready to make any significant changes to the legislation.
See also: degree

to the nth degree

To the highest level or degree; as much as possible. We're pushing the computer to the nth degree to be able to render these kinds of effects. The film is cheesy to the nth degree, but intentionally so.
See also: degree, nth

turn 180 degrees

1. Literally, to turn and face the opposite direction. I was going to go to the park, but when I saw those dark clouds roll in, I turned 180 degrees and headed back home.
2. To make a big change in one's position, opinion, lifestyle, etc. A: "Can you believe that Sam quit his job at the firm?" B: "No, he really turned 180 degrees on being a paralegal!"
See also: 180, degree, turn
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

do a one-eighty

 and turn one hundred and eighty degrees 
1. Lit. to turn around and go in the opposite direction. When I hollered, the dog did a one-eighty and headed back to its own yard.
2. Fig. to radically reverse a decision or opinion. His political philosophy turned one hundred and eighty degrees when he grew a little older.

*third degree

Fig. a long and detailed period of questioning. (*Typically: get ~; give someone ~.) Why is it I get the third degree from you every time I come home late? Poor Sally spent all night at the police station getting the third degree.
See also: degree, third

to the nth degree

to the maximum amount. Jane is a perfectionist and tries to be careful to the nth degree. This scientific instrument is accurate to the nth degree.
See also: degree, nth
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.

by degrees

Gradually, by successive steps or stages. For example, By degrees he began to delegate more and more of his duties to his staff. [Mid-1500s] Also see by inches.
See also: by, degree

third degree

Intensive questioning or rough treatment used to obtain information or a confession, as in The detectives gave her the third degree, or Jim gave her the third degree when she came home so late. This term comes from freemasonry, where a candidate receives the third or highest degree, that of master mason, upon passing an intensive test. Dating from the 1770s, the phrase was transferred to other kinds of interrogation in the late 1800s.
See also: degree, third

to a degree

Also, to an extent. See to some degree.
See also: degree

to some degree

Also, to a certain degree; to some or a certain extent ; to a degree or an extent . Somewhat, in a way, as in To some degree we'll have to compromise, or To an extent it's a matter of adjusting to the colder climate. The use of degree in these terms, all used in the same way, dates from the first half of the 1700s, and extent from the mid-1800s.
See also: degree

to the nth degree

To the utmost, as in They'd decked out the house to the nth degree. This expression comes from mathematics, where to the nth means "to any required power" ( n standing for any number). It was first recorded in 1852.
See also: degree, nth
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.

give someone the third degree

If someone gives you the third degree, they ask you a lot of questions in a determined manner. He told the operator his wife was having a baby on the pavement. The operator gave him the third degree to make sure he was serious. The interviewer didn't exactly give her the third degree.
See also: degree, give, someone, third

to the nth degree

If you do something or have a particular quality to the nth degree, you do it or have it to an extreme degree. He carried discretion to the nth degree, speaking only once about his job. You're a risk-taker to the nth degree.
See also: degree, nth
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed.

one degree under

slightly unwell. informal
See also: degree, one

to the nth degree

to any extent; to the utmost.
In mathematics, nth denotes an unspecified member of a series of numbers or enumerated items.
1994 i-D Along the way they argue, get harassed by ignorant locals, sing along to their favourite tunes and camp it up to the nth degree.
See also: degree, nth
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary

by deˈgrees

little by little; gradually: The country’s economy won’t improve straight away, but will only get better by degrees.
See also: by, degree

to the nth deˈgree

(informal) to the greatest possible amount, level, etc.; very much: This book is boring to the nth degree.
See also: degree, nth

(give somebody) the ˌthird deˈgree

(informal) question somebody for a long time and in a thorough way; use threats or violence to get information from somebody: The soldiers were given the third degree in order to make them reveal the information. Why are you giving me the third degree?This expression comes from Freemasonry (= a secret society). In order to reach the highest level of the organization and become a Third Degree Mason, members are interrogated.
See also: degree, third
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary

third degree

n. a session of questioning, usually by the police. Bart got the third degree, but—being the thoroughbred he is—he was a clam. They gave Spike the third degree, but he refused to say anything.
See also: degree, third
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions

by degrees

Little by little; gradually.
See also: by, degree

to a degree

To a small extent; in a limited way: doesn't like spicy food, but can eat a little pepper to a degree.
See also: degree
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition.

six degrees of separation

The idea that everyone on earth may be linked to anyone else through a chain of connections. This newer phrase for it’s a small world was the title of a play and the movie based on it (1993) by John Guare. The term is becoming a cliché.
See also: degree, of, six

third degree, to give/get the

To give or be subjected to intensive questioning and/or rough treatment. In Freemasonry, the third and highest degree is that of master mason, attained after a stiff examination, and several writers speculate that this may be the source of the late nineteenth-century expression for an inquisition. Today the term is used both for the sometimes brutal tactics of the police and other authorities to make a prisoner tell the truth or reveal secrets, and more lightly for questioning about less important matters, as in “Jane gave Martha the third degree about her good-looking new boss.”
See also: get, give, third

to the nth degree

To the utmost possible. In mathematics to the nth has meant “to any required power” since the eighteenth century, and it soon came to be used figuratively as meaning “to any extent” or “to the utmost.” Thus Francis E. Smedley wrote (Lewis Arundel, 1852), “Minerva was great . . . starched to the nth.”
See also: degree, nth
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer
See also:
  • by degrees
  • build up
  • boiling frog
  • build up to
  • build up to (something)
  • boiling frog syndrome
  • syndrome
  • a quick fix
  • quick fix
  • get (some) steam up
References in classic literature
There Burton, who was completely worn out, lay ill for several months, during which time Speke made a push to the northward of more than three hundred miles, going as far as Lake Okeracua, which he came in sight of on the 3d of August; but he could descry only the opening of it at latitude two degrees thirty minutes.
Barth, since to do so was to undertake to traverse an extent of more than twelve degrees of territory.
Five Weeks in a Balloon
We suffered nearly two hours of this intense and bitter cold, until at about two hundred and forty-five miles from the surface of the earth we entered a stratum of solid ice, when the mercury quickly rose to 32 degrees. During the next three hours we passed through ten miles of ice, eventually emerging into another series of ammonia-impregnated strata, where the mercury again fell to ten degrees below zero.
At four hundred miles the temperature had reached 153 degrees. Feverishly I watched the thermometer.
For another hour I saw that pitiless column of mercury rise and rise until at four hundred and ten miles it stood at 153 degrees. Now it was that we began to hang upon those readings in almost breathless anxiety.
One hundred and fifty-three degrees had been the maximum temperature above the ice stratum.
At the Earths Core
It is Harvard which, first among New England colleges, confers an honorary degree upon a black man.
What is equally important, they are exhibiting a degree of common sense and self-control which is causing better relations to exist between the races, and is causing the Southern white man to learn to believe in the value of educating the men and women of my race.
At nine o'clock, on the morning of June 24, I met President Eliot, the Board of Overseers of Harvard University, and the other guests, at the designated place on the university grounds, for the purpose of being escorted to Sanders Theatre, where the Commencement exercises were to be held and degrees conferred.
Up From Slavery
Any part or organ developed to an extraordinary size or in an extraordinary manner, in comparison with the same part or organ in the allied species, must have gone through an extraordinary amount of modification since the genus arose; and thus we can understand why it should often still be variable in a much higher degree than other parts; for variation is a long-continued and slow process, and natural selection will in such cases not as yet have had time to overcome the tendency to further variability and to reversion to a less modified state.
The Origin of Species
Type T, or thermostatic mixing valves, compensate for both fluctuations in temperature and pressure (though to a lesser degree than Type P valves for pressure).
Bathing safety for the elderly and disabled: can residents be protected from all hazards posed by bathing water? Technology's answer
The greatest degree of visual vertical tilt was observed during the acute stage of vestibular disease, and the degree of tilt decreased as clinical recovery progressed.
Subjective assessment of visual verticality in follow-up of patients with acute vestibular disease. (Original Article)
According to Roberta Shaffer, program coordinator for the MIM degree, "Students will benefit from an unrivaled confluence of advantages offered by a management degree that focuses on information and is housed at an excellent college at the heart of a major research university and located near many of the world's most critical information resources and centers.
New degree program focuses on strategic information management
Between 1870 and 1970, the degree ratio rose from just 0,02, meaning that 2 out of every 100 schoolchildren graduated from high school, to no less than 0.77 (see Figure 1), Indeed, a knowledgeable observer in 1960 might have predicted that the nation would have approached universal high-school graduation by the turn of the century.
Tassels on the cheap: treating the GED as a high-school diploma masks a declining graduation rate. (Feature)
Pursuing the second master's degree was expensive and time-consuming.
A matter of degree: the trend toward physician executives' pursuing master's degrees