Verb

(enclin)

* {{quote-book, year=1591, author=Edmund Spenser, title=The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5, chapter=, edition= citation

, passage="Now sure, and by my hallidome," quoth he 545 "Yea great master are in your degree: Great thankes I yeeld you for your discipline, And doo not doubt but duly to encline My wits theretoo, as ye shall shortly heare." }}

* {{quote-book, year=1753, author=Theophilus Cibber, title=The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland, chapter=, edition= citation

, passage=My dities indited may counsell many one, But not you, your maners surmounteth my doctrine Wherefore, I regard you, and your maners all one, After whose living my processes, I combine: So other men instrusting, I must to you encline Conforming my process, as much as I am able, To your sad behaviour and maners commendable. }}

* {{quote-book, year=1890, author=William Painter, title=The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1, chapter=, edition= citation

, passage=The peres and noble men seing their king reduced to such extremitie, moued with pitie and compassion, began secretly to pratise for him, some with threatninges, some with flatteries and persuasions: some went to the mother, declaring vnto her the eternall rest and quiet prepared for her and all her friendes, if she would persuade her daughter to encline to the kinge's mind, and contrariwyse the daunger iminent ouer her head. }} ----

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.