Descend vs Decline - What's the difference?
descend | decline |
To pass from a higher to a lower place; to move downwards; to come or go down in any way, as by falling, flowing, walking, etc.; to plunge; to fall; to incline downward
(poetic) To enter mentally; to retire.
(with on or upon) To make an attack, or incursion, as if from a vantage ground; to come suddenly and with violence.
To come down to a lower, less fortunate, humbler, less virtuous, or worse, state or station; to lower or abase one's self
To pass from the more general or important to the particular or less important matters to be considered.
To come down, as from a source, original, or stock; to be derived; to proceed by generation or by transmission; to fall or pass by inheritance.
(anatomy) To move toward the south, or to the southward.
(music) To fall in pitch; to pass from a higher to a lower tone.
To go down upon or along; to pass from a higher to a lower part of
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.
In intransitive terms the difference between descend and decline
is that descend is to come down, as from a source, original, or stock; to be derived; to proceed by generation or by transmission; to fall or pass by inheritance while decline is to become weaker or worse.In transitive terms the difference between descend and decline
is that descend is to go down upon or along; to pass from a higher to a lower part of while decline is to refuse, forbear.As a noun decline is
downward movement, fall.descend
English
(Webster 1913)Verb
(en verb)- The rain descended , and the floods came. Matthew vii. 25.
- We will here descend to matters of later date. Fuller.
- [He] with holiest meditations fed, Into himself descended . .
- And on the suitors let thy wrath descend . .
- he descended from his high estate
- the beggar may descend from a prince
- a crown descends to the heir
- they descended the river in boats; to descend a ladder
- But never tears his cheek descended . .
Synonyms
* go downAntonyms
* ascend * go upDerived terms
* descenderdecline
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.