decline
Meaning
-
- Downward movement, fall.
- A sloping downward, e.g. of a hill or road.
- A deterioration of condition; a weakening or worsening.
- A reduction or diminution of activity, prevalence or quantity.
- The act of declining or refusing something.
Frequency
Hyphenated as
de‧cline
Pronounced as (IPA)
/dɪˈklaɪn/
Etymology
From Middle English declinen, and ultimately Latin declīnō (“to bend, turn aside, deflect, inflect, decline”, from de (“down”) + clīnō (“I bend, I incline”)), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱley- (English lean). The senses arrived from two separate pathways in Middle English: * The grammatical sense came from Old English declīnian, which was borrowed directly from the Latin etymon. * All senses except the grammatical sense were derived from those of Old French decliner. Old French itself borrowed the verb from Latin.
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