Verb

(declin)

To move downwards, to fall, to drop.

To become weaker or worse.

To bend downward; to bring down; to depress; to cause to bend, or fall.

* Thomson

in melancholy deep, with head declined

* Spenser

And now fair Phoebus gan decline in haste / His weary wagon to the western vale.

To cause to decrease or diminish.

* Beaumont and Fletcher

You have declined his means.

* Burton

He knoweth his error, but will not seek to decline it.

To turn or bend aside; to deviate; to stray; to withdraw.

a line that declines from straightness

conduct that declines from sound morals

* Bible, Psalms cxix. 157

Yet do I not decline from thy testimonies.

To refuse, forbear.

* Massinger

Could I decline this dreadful hour?

* , chapter=7

, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=“[…] This is Mr. Churchill, who, as you are aware, is good enough to come to us for his diaconate, and, as we hope, for much longer; and being a gentleman of independent means, he declines to take any payment.” Saying this Walden rubbed his hands together and smiled contentedly.}}

To inflect for case, number and sometimes gender.

* Ascham

after the first declining of a noun and a verb

(by extension) To run through from first to last; to repeat like a schoolboy declining a noun.

(Shakespeare)

(American football) 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.

Verb

(deriv)

To obtain or receive (something) from something else.

* {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author= Sarah Glaz

, title= Ode to Prime Numbers , volume=101, issue=4, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Some poems, echoing the purpose of early poetic treatises on scientific principles, attempt to elucidate the mathematical concepts that underlie prime numbers. Others play with primes’ cultural associations. Still others derive their structure from mathematical patterns involving primes.}}

(logic) To deduce (a conclusion) by reasoning.

(linguistics) To find the derivation of (a word or phrase).

(chemistry) To create (a compound) from another by means of a reaction.

To originate or stem (from).

* {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01

, author=Robert M. Pringle, volume=100, issue=1, page=31, magazine=(American Scientist) , title= How to Be Manipulative , passage=As in much of biology, the most satisfying truths in ecology derive from manipulative experimentation. Tinker with nature and quantify how it responds.}}

To turn the course of (water, etc.); to divert and distribute into subordinate channels.

* (and other bibliographic details) Holland

For fear it [water] choke up the pitsthey [the workman] derive it by other drains.