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Decline vs Plunge - What's the difference?

decline | plunge |

As verbs the difference between decline and plunge

is that decline is while plunge is (label) to thrust into water, or into any substance that is penetrable; to immerse.

As an adjective decline

is declined.

As a noun plunge is

the act of plunging or submerging.

decline

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • 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= 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.}}
  • A reduction or diminution of activity.
  • *
  • 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

    * incline

    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.

    Derived terms

    * declension * declination

    plunge

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • the act of plunging or submerging
  • a dive, leap, rush, or pitch into (into water)
  • to take the water with a plunge
    plunge in the sea
  • (figuratively) the act of pitching or throwing one's self headlong or violently forward, like an unruly horse
  • (slang) heavy and reckless betting in horse racing; hazardous speculation
  • (obsolete) an immersion in difficulty, embarrassment, or distress; the condition of being surrounded or overwhelmed; a strait; difficulty
  • Verb

    (plung)
  • (label) To thrust into water, or into any substance that is penetrable; to immerse.
  • To cast or throw into some thing, state, condition or action.
  • To baptize by immersion.
  • (label) To dive, leap or rush (into water or some liquid); to submerge one's self.
  • To fall or rush headlong into some thing, action, state or condition.
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=8 , passage=The day was cool and snappy for August, and the Rise all green with a lavish nature. Now we plunged into a deep shade with the boughs lacing each other overhead, and crossed dainty, rustic bridges over the cold trout-streams, the boards giving back the clatter of our horses' feet:
  • *
  • (label) To pitch or throw one's self headlong or violently forward, as a horse does.
  • * (Joseph Hall) (1574-1656)
  • some wild colt, which flings and plunges
  • To bet heavily and with seeming recklessness on a race, or other contest; in an extended sense, to risk large sums in hazardous speculations.
  • To entangle or embarrass (mostly used in past participle).
  • * (Thomas Browne) (1605-1682)
  • Plunged and gravelled with three lines of Seneca.
  • To overwhelm, overpower.
  • Anagrams

    *

    References

    * * English ergative verbs