Decline (Verb)
Meaning 1
Show unwillingness towards; "he declined to join the group on a hike".
Classification
Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing.
Examples
- She declined to answer any further questions about her personal life.
- The company declined our offer and decided to go with a different contractor.
- The celebrity declined to attend the awards ceremony in protest of the host.
- After hearing about the extreme difficulty of the course, I declined to enroll in it.
- He declined to comment on the rumors surrounding his resignation as CEO.
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Meaning 2
Grow worse; "Conditions in the slum worsened".
Classification
Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc..
Examples
- The patient's health began to decline rapidly after the infection took hold of her body.
- The economic downturn forced many industries to decline in terms of production and overall revenue.
- As time passed, her passion for the hobby began to decline, and she eventually gave it up for good.
- His mental health started to decline after losing his loved one, and he struggled to cope with the loss.
- The city's air quality continued to decline due to increased pollution from vehicles and factories.
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- Devolve
- Tumble
- Degenerate
- Inflame
- Retrogress
- Deprive
- Drop
- Suffer
- Sicken
- Regress
- Fail
- Drop Away
- Turn Down
- Slip
- Fall Away
Related Words
Meaning 3
Refuse to accept; "He refused my offer of hospitality".
Classification
Verbs of buying, selling, owning.
Examples
- The elderly woman would decline my offer of help whenever I saw her struggling with her groceries.
- He will decline the invitation to the award ceremony if he hasn't finished the project by then.
- They politely decline any gifts from their in-laws to avoid an awkward situation.
- I decline the offer of a second helping of dessert, even though it's my favorite.
- The grieving widow was too overcome with emotion to decline any of the condolences from her friends.
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Meaning 4
Grow smaller; "Interest in the project waned".
Classification
Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc..
Examples
- As the years went by, the town's population started to decline due to lack of job opportunities.
- The demand for the product began to decline after the company increased its price significantly.
- Her wealth began to decline after the stock market crash.
- Student enrollment in the school started to decline due to declining academic standards.
- The number of viewers watching the show started to decline as the storyline became less engaging.
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Meaning 5
Go down in value; "the stock market corrected"; "prices slumped".
Classification
Verbs of walking, flying, swimming.
Examples
- The company's profits will decline over the coming years if current trends continue.
- Share prices began to decline rapidly as investors lost confidence in the company's leadership.
- The housing market decline led to many people struggling to sell their homes.
- Due to over-saturation, smartphone sales will decline in the near future.
- The value of their bonds is expected to decline if inflation rates continue to rise.
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Meaning 6
Go down; "The roof declines here".
Classification
Verbs of walking, flying, swimming.
Examples
- The land declines sharply at the edge of the cliff, causing loose rocks to slide down.
- The graph shows that the price of the stock declines rapidly when the company announced its financial struggles.
- The highway declines gradually to provide vehicles with a safe transition from the higher elevation to the lower one.
- The steep path declines sharply to the base of the mountain, requiring hikers to hold onto the handrails for safety.
- The floor declines in some areas of the old warehouse due to settling foundations and uneven support beams.
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Meaning 7
Inflect for number, gender, case, etc.; "in many languages, speakers decline nouns, pronouns, and adjectives".
Classification
Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing.
Examples
- In German, a noun can decline based on its grammatical case, with the feminine noun 'Blume' declining as 'die Blume' in the nominative case.
- To properly decline the adjective 'grand' in French, its ending must agree with the noun it modifies in both number and gender.
- In Latin, a verb such as 'amare' can be made to decline according to the six cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, and vocative.
- When asked to decline the noun 'house' in Russian, students must be aware of the six distinct cases, which alter the noun's ending.
- Students learning Japanese often struggle to decline the proper nouns for 'I' or 'me', with various words available depending on the level of formality desired.