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Decline vs Slide - What's the difference?

decline | slide | Related terms |

In intransitive terms the difference between decline and slide

is that decline is to become weaker or worse while slide is to pass along smoothly or unobservedly; to move gently onward without friction or hindrance.

In transitive terms the difference between decline and slide

is that decline is to refuse, forbear while slide is to pass or put imperceptibly; to slip.

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

    slide

    English

    Verb

  • (ergative) To (cause to) move in continuous contact with a surface
  • He slid the boat across the grass.
    The safe slid slowly.
    Snow slides down the side of a mountain.
  • To move on a low-friction surface.
  • The car slid on the ice.
  • * (rfdate), Waller:
  • They bathe in summer, and in winter slide .
  • (baseball) To drop down and skid into a base.
  • Jones slid into second.
  • To lose one’s balance on a slippery surface.
  • He slid while going around the corner.
  • To pass or put imperceptibly; to slip.
  • to slide in a word to vary the sense of a question
  • (obsolete) To pass inadvertently.
  • * Bible, Eccles. xxviii. 26
  • Beware thou slide not by it.
  • To pass along smoothly or unobservedly; to move gently onward without friction or hindrance.
  • A ship or boat slides through the water.
  • * (rfdate), Dryden:
  • Ages shall slide away without perceiving.
  • * (rfdate), Alexander Pope:
  • Parts answering parts shall slide into a whole.
  • (music) To pass from one note to another with no perceptible cessation of sound.
  • To pass out of one's thought as not being of any consequence.
  • * (rfdate), Chaucer:
  • With good hope let he sorrow slide .
  • * (rfdate), Philip Sidney:
  • With a calm carelessness letting everything slide .

    Derived terms

    * let slide

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An item of play equipment that children can climb up and then slide down again.
  • The long, red slide was great fun for the kids.
  • A surface of ice, snow, butter, etc. on which someone can slide for amusement or as a practical joke.
  • (Charles Dickens)
  • The falling of large amounts of rubble, earth and stones down the slope of a hill or mountain; avalanche.
  • The slide closed the highway.
  • An inclined plane on which heavy bodies slide by the force of gravity, especially one constructed on a mountainside for conveying logs by sliding them down.
  • A mechanism consisting of a part which slides on or against a guide.
  • The act of sliding; smooth, even passage or progress.
  • a slide on the ice
  • * Francis Bacon
  • A better slide into their business.
  • *
  • A lever that can be moved in two directions.
  • A valve that works by sliding, such as in a trombone.
  • A transparent plate bearing an image to be projected to a screen.
  • (baseball) The act of dropping down and skidding into a base
  • (sciences) A flat, rectangular piece of glass on which a prepared sample may be viewed through a microscope.
  • (music, guitar) A hand-held device made of smooth, hard material, used in the practice of slide guitar.
  • A lively dance from County Kerry, in 12/8 time.
  • (geology) A small dislocation in beds of rock along a line of fissure.
  • (Dana)
  • (music) A grace consisting of two or more small notes moving by conjoint degrees, and leading to a principal note either above or below.
  • (phonetics) A sound which, by a gradual change in the position of the vocal organs, passes imperceptibly into another sound.
  • A clasp or brooch for a belt, etc.
  • Synonyms

    * (item of play equipment) slippery dip * (inclined plane on which heavy bodies slide by the force of gravity) chute * (mechanism of a part which slides on or against a guide) runner

    Derived terms

    * landslide * mudslide * water slide * hairslide