Like others, the prefix de- has several different meanings. Its most basic sense is ‘away, off. You can see this meaning in the words debar, to shut out or away; defend, to ward off danger or attack; and defer, to put off or delay.
It can also mean ‘less’ or ‘down’, as in decline, to bend or sink downwards, both literally, as of one’s head, and of things like health; demote, to move down, especially in status; and of course descend and decrease.
The other common function of de- is to show the reverse of an action, that is, the opposite or undoing of the action. Hence, depreciate, the opposite of appreciate; decipher, literally, to take out of code; deform, to spoil the shape of; dehumidify, to take the humidity out of; and depopulated, used to describe a region when part of the population has moved away.
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