Idiom idiom
degrade gracefully
Meaning
Of a system: to maintain at least some of its functionality when portions are not working, or when certain features are not available.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“The app will degrade gracefully if the internet connection is slow.”
“Our website is designed to degrade gracefully, so users can still read text even if the images fail to load.”
“The software architecture ensures that the system can degrade gracefully, maintaining core operations even when critical hardware components suffer unexpected failures.”
Anchors to
Last updated August 10, 2026