Decline
To bend, or lean downward; to take a downward direction; to bend over or hang down, as from weakness, weariness, despondency, etc.; to condescend.
To tend or draw towards a close, decay, or extinction; to tend to a less perfect state; to become diminished or impaired; to fail; to sink; to diminish; to lessen; as, the day declines; virtue declines; religion declines; business declines.
To turn or bend aside; to deviate; to stray; to withdraw; as, a line that declines from straightness; conduct that declines from sound morals.
To turn away; to shun; to refuse; -- the opposite of accept or consent; as, he declined, upon principle.
To bend downward; to bring down; to depress; to cause to bend, or fall.
To cause to decrease or diminish.
To put or turn aside; to turn off or away from; to refuse to undertake or comply with; reject; to shun; to avoid; as, to decline an offer; to decline a contest; he declined any participation with them.
To inflect, or rehearse in order the changes of grammatical form of; as, to decline a noun or an adjective.
To run through from first to last; to repeat like a schoolboy declining a noun.
A falling off; a tendency to a worse state; diminution or decay; deterioration; also, the period when a thing is tending toward extinction or a less perfect state; as, the decline of life; the decline of strength; the decline of virtue and religion.
That period of a disorder or paroxysm when the symptoms begin to abate in violence; as, the decline of a fever.
A gradual sinking and wasting away of the physical faculties; any wasting disease, esp. pulmonary consumption; as, to die of a decline.
Related Definitions:
Abate,
Accept,
Adjective,
Also,
An,
And,
Any,
As,
Aside,
Avoid,
Away,
Become,
Begin,
Bend,
Bring,
Business,
Cause,
Close,
Comply,
Condescend,
Conduct,
Consent,
Consumption,
Contest,
Day,
Decay,
Decline,
Declined,
Declining,
Decrease,
Depress,
Despondency,
Deterioration,
Deviate,
Die,
Diminish,
Diminished,
Diminution,
Direction,
Disease,
Disorder,
Down,
Downward,
Draw,
Extinction,
Faculties,
Fail,
Fall,
Falling,
Fever,
First,
Form,
From,
Gradual,
Grammatical,
Hang,
He,
Impaired,
In,
Inflect,
Is,
Last,
Lean,
Less,
Lessen,
Life,
Like,
Line,
Noun,
Of,
Off,
Offer,
Opposite,
Or,
Order,
Over,
Paroxysm,
Participation,
Perfect,
Period,
Physical,
Principle,
Pulmonary,
Put,
Refuse,
Rehearse,
Reject,
Religion,
Repeat,
Run,
Schoolboy,
Shun,
Sink,
Sinking,
Sound,
State,
Straightness,
Stray,
Strength,
Take,
Tend,
Tendency,
Tending,
That,
The,
Them,
Thing,
Through,
To,
Toward,
Towards,
Turn,
Undertake,
Upon,
Violence,
Virtue,
Wasting,
Weakness,
Weariness,
When,
With,
Withdraw,
Worse
Decline Quotations
Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.
Aristotle
The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Land and sea, weakness and decline are great separators, but death is the great divorcer for ever.
John Keats
I decline to accept the end of man.
William Faulkner
I reject the notion that America is in a well-deserved decline, that she and her citizens are unexceptional. I do not believe America is the problem in the world. I believe America is the solution to the world's problems.
Rush Limbaugh
My opposition to Interviews lies in the fact that offhand answers have little value or grace of expression, and that such oral give and take helps to perpetuate the decline of the English language.
James Thurber
I like to walk about among the beautiful things that adorn the world; but private wealth I should decline, or any sort of personal possessions, because they would take away my liberty.
George Santayana
In addition to the decline in competition, American politics today is characterized by a growing ideological polarization between the two major political parties.
Thomas E. Mann
Whipping and abuse are like laudanum: you have to double the dose as the sensibilities decline.
Harriet Beecher Stowe
In the decline of the day, near Kentucky river, as we ascended the brow of a small hill, a number of Indians rushed out of a thick cane-brake upon us, and made us prisoners.
Daniel Boone
Decline Translations
decline in Dutch is dalen, kleiner worden, afnemen
decline in Italian is rifiutare
decline in Latin is recuso, declive
decline in Spanish is declinar
Copyright © 2001 - 2012 BrainyQuote
BookRags Media Network
