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Improvement vs Decrease - What's the difference?

improvement | decrease |

As nouns the difference between improvement and decrease

is that improvement is the act of improving; advancement or growth; promotion in desirable qualities; progress toward what is better; melioration; as, the improvement of the mind, of land, roads, etc while decrease is an amount by which a quantity is decreased.

As a verb decrease is

of a quantity, to become smaller.

improvement

English

(Webster 1913)

Alternative forms

* emprovement (obsolete)

Noun

(en noun)
  • The act of improving]]; advancement or growth; [[promote, promotion in desirable qualities; progress toward what is better; melioration; as, the improvement of the mind, of land, roads, etc.
  • * (Robert South)
  • I look upon your city as the best place of improvement .
  • * (Hugh Blair)
  • Exercise is the chief source of improvement in all our faculties.
  • * , chapter=19
  • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=Nothing was too small to receive attention, if a supervising eye could suggest improvements likely to conduce to the common welfare. Mr. Gordon Burnage, for instance, personally visited dust-bins and back premises, accompanied by a sort of village bailiff, going his round like a commanding officer doing billets.}}
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=70, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Engineers of a different kind , passage=Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers.
  • The act of making profitable use or application of anything, or the state of being profitably employed; a turning to good account; practical application, as of a doctrine, principle, or theory, stated in a discourse.
  • * (Samuel Clarke)
  • A good improvement of his reason.
  • * (John Tillotson)
  • I shall make some improvement of this doctrine.
  • The state of being improved; betterment; advance; also, that which is improved; as, the new edition is an improvement on the old.
  • * (Joseph Addison)
  • The parts of Sinon, Camilla, and some few others, are improvements on the Greek poet.
  • Increase; growth; progress; advance.
  • * (Joseph Addison)
  • There is a design of publishing the history of architecture, with its several improvements and decays.
  • * (Robert South)
  • Those vices which more particularly receive improvement by prosperity.
  • (plural): Valuable additions or betterments, as buildings, clearings, drains, fences, etc., on premises.
  • (Patent Laws): A useful addition to, or modification of, a machine, manufacture, or composition.
  • Synonyms

    * improval

    decrease

    English

    Verb

    (decreas)
  • Of a quantity, to become smaller.
  • To make (a quantity) smaller.
  • Synonyms

    * (become smaller) drop, fall, go down, plummet (rapidly), plunge (rapidly), reduce, shrink, sink * (make smaller) abate, cut, decrement, lower, reduce

    Antonyms

    * (become larger) go up, grow, increase, rise, soar (rapidly), shoot up (rapidly) * (make larger) increase, increment, raise, up (informal)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An amount by which a quantity is decreased.
  • (knitting) A reduction in the number of stitches, usually accomplished by suspending the stitch to be decreased from another existing stitch or by knitting it together with another stitch. See .
  • Synonyms

    * (amount by which a quantity is decreased) cut, decrement, drop, fall, loss, lowering, reduction, shrinkage

    Antonyms

    * (amount by which a quantity is decreased) gain, increase, increment, raise , rise