decline.
Downward movement, fall.
Meaning & usage
Downward movement, fall.
The aircraft went into a sudden decline before the pilot regained control.
A sloping downward, e.g. of a hill or road.
After taking a right from that turn a decline will come into view.
A deterioration of condition; a weakening or worsening.
He has experienced a sudden decline in his health.
Educational standards are on the decline.
A reduction or diminution of activity, prevalence or quantity.
Population decline is a major concern.
Town-centre retailers have seen a decline in footfall.
The act of declining or refusing something.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English declinen, and ultimately Latin declīnō (“to bend, turn aside, deflect, inflect, decline”, from dē- (“down”) + clīnō (“to bend, to 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.
To move downwards, to fall, to drop.
The dollar has declined rapidly since 2001.
To become weaker or worse.
My health declined in winter.
To bend downward; to bring down; to depress; to cause to bend, or fall.
To cause to decrease or diminish.
To turn or bend aside; to deviate; to stray; to withdraw.
To choose not to do something; refuse, forbear, refrain.
On reflection I think I will decline your generous offer.
To inflect for case, number, gender, and the like.
To recite all the different declined forms of (a word): to recite its declension.
To run through from first to last; to recite in order as though declining a noun.
To reject a penalty against the opposing team, usually because the result of accepting it would benefit the non-penalized team less than the preceding play.
The team chose to decline the fifteen-yard penalty because their receiver had caught the ball for a thirty-yard gain.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English declinen, and ultimately Latin declīnō (“to bend, turn aside, deflect, inflect, decline”, from dē- (“down”) + clīnō (“to bend, to 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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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.