Verb

(es)

To make smaller.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2012-12-14

, author=Simon Jenkins, authorlink=Simon Jenkins, volume=188, issue=2, page=23 , date=2012-12-21, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= We mustn't overreact to North Korea boys' toys , passage=The threat of terrorism to the British lies in the overreaction to it of British governments. Each one in turn clicks up the ratchet of surveillance, intrusion and security. Each one diminishes liberty.}}

To become smaller.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Old soldiers? , passage=Whether modern, industrial man is less or more warlike than his hunter-gatherer ancestors is impossible to determine.

To lessen the authority or dignity of; to put down; to degrade; to abase; to weaken.

* Robynson (More's Utopia)

This doth nothing diminish their opinion.

* Bible, Ezekiel xxix. 15

I will diminish them, that they shall no more rule over the nations.

* Milton

O thou at whose sight all the stars / Hide their diminished heads.

To taper.

To disappear gradually.

To take away; to subtract.

* Bible, Deuteronomy iv. 2

Neither shall ye diminish aught from it.

(music) To reduce a perfect or minor interval by a semitone.

Verb

To reach a conclusion by applying rules of logic to given premises.

* Alexander Pope

O goddess, say, shall I deduce my rhymes / From the dire nation in its early times?

* John Locke

Reasoning is nothing but the faculty of deducing unknown truths from principles already known.

* Sir Walter Scott

See what regard will be paid to the pedigree which deduces your descent from kings and conquerors.

(obsolete) To take away; to deduct; to subtract.

to deduce a part from the whole

(Ben Jonson)

(obsolete, Latinism) To lead forth.

* Selden

He should hither deduce a colony.