  This paper is focused on the local interior $W^{1,\infty}$-regularity for
weak solutions of degenerate elliptic equations of the form
$\text{div}[\mathbf{a}(x,u, \nabla u)] +b(x, u, \nabla u) =0$, which include
those of $p$-Laplacian type. We derive an explicit estimate of the local
$L^\infty$-norm for the solution's gradient in terms of its local $L^p$-norm.
Specifically, we prove \begin{equation*} \|\nabla
u\|_{L^\infty(B_{\frac{R}{2}}(x_0))}^p \leq
\frac{C}{|B_R(x_0)|}\int_{B_R(x_0)}|\nabla u(x)|^p dx. \end{equation*} This
estimate paves the way for our forthcoming work in establishing
$W^{1,q}$-estimates (for $q>p$) for weak solutions to a much larger class of
quasilinear elliptic equations.
