Decline vs Improve - What's the difference?
decline | improve |
Downward movement, fall.(rfex)
A sloping downward, e.g. of a hill or road.(rfex)
(senseid)A weakening.(rfex)
* {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01
, author=Philip E. Mirowski
, title=Harms to Health from the Pursuit of Profits
, volume=100, issue=1, page=87
, magazine=
A reduction or diminution of activity.
*
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
* Spenser
To cause to decrease or diminish.
* Beaumont and Fletcher
* Burton
To turn or bend aside; to deviate; to stray; to withdraw.
* Bible, Psalms cxix. 157
To refuse, forbear.
* Massinger
* , chapter=7
, title= To inflect for case, number and sometimes gender.
* Ascham
(by extension) To run through from first to last; to repeat like a schoolboy declining a noun.
(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.
(lb) To make (something) better; to increase the value or productivity (of something).
:
:
*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=70, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= (lb) To become better.
:
:
*
*:“My Continental prominence is improving ,” I commented dryly. ¶ Von Lindowe cut at a furze bush with his silver-mounted rattan. ¶ “Quite so,” he said as dryly, his hand at his mustache. “I may say if your intentions were known your life would not be worth a curse.”
(lb) To disprove or make void; to refute.
*(William Tyndale) (1494-1536)
*:Neither can any of them make so strong a reason which another cannot improve .
(lb) To disapprove of; to find fault with; to reprove; to censure.
:
:(Chapman)
*(William Tyndale) (1494-1536)
*:When he rehearsed his preachings and his doing unto the high apostles, they could improve nothing.
(lb) To use or employ to good purpose; to turn to profitable account.
:
*(Isaac Barrow) (1630-1677)
*:We shall especially honour God by improving diligently the talents which God hath committed to us.
*(Joseph Addison) (1672-1719)
*:a hint that I do not remember to have seen opened and improved
*(William Blackstone) (1723-1780)
*:The court seldom fails to improve the opportunity.
*(Isaac Watts) (1674-1748)
*:How doth the little busy bee / Improve each shining hour.
*(George Washington) (1732-1799)
*:True policy, as well as good faith, in my opinion, binds us to improve the occasion.
As verbs the difference between decline and improve
is that decline is while improve is (lb) to make (something) better; to increase the value or productivity (of something).As an adjective decline
is declined.decline
English
Noun
(en noun)citation, passage=In an era when political leaders promise deliverance from decline through America’s purported preeminence in scientific research, the news that science is in deep trouble in the United States has been as unwelcome as a diagnosis of leukemia following the loss of health insurance.}}
- It is also pertinent to note that the current obvious decline in work on holarctic hepatics most surely reflects a current obsession with cataloging and with nomenclature of the organisms—as divorced from their study as living entities.
Antonyms
* inclineVerb
(declin)- in melancholy deep, with head declined
- And now fair Phoebus gan decline in haste / His weary wagon to the western vale.
- You have declined his means.
- He knoweth his error, but will not seek to decline it.
- a line that declines from straightness
- conduct that declines from sound morals
- Yet do I not decline from thy testimonies.
- Could I decline this dreadful hour?
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.}}
- after the first declining of a noun and a verb
- (Shakespeare)
- The team chose to decline the fifteen-yard penalty because their receiver had caught the ball for a thirty-yard gain.
Derived terms
* declension * declinationExternal links
* * * ----improve
English
Alternative forms
* emprove (obsolete)Verb
(improv)Engineers of a different kind, passage=Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist. Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster.}}
