Lose vs Decline - What's the difference?
lose | decline |
To cause (something) to cease to be in one's possession or capability due to unfortunate or unknown circumstances, events or reasons.
* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
, chapter=19 * {{quote-news, year=2011, date=April 15, author=Saj Chowdhury, work=BBC Sport
, title= To wander from; to miss, so as not to be able to find; to go astray from.
* Shakespeare
To have (an organ) removed from one's body, especially by accident.
To fail to win (a game, competition, trial, etc).
* Dryden
To shed (weight).
To experience the death of (someone to whom one has an attachment, such as a relative or friend).
To be unable to follow or trace (somebody or something) any longer.
To cause (somebody) to be unable to follow or trace one any longer.
(informal) To shed, remove, discard, or eliminate.
Of a clock, to run slower than expected.
To cause (someone) the loss of something; to deprive of.
* Baxter
* 2002 , , The Great Nation , Penguin 2003, p. 556:
To fail to catch with the mind or senses; to miss.
(archaic) To cause to part with; to deprive of.
* Sir W. Temple
(obsolete) Fame, renown; praise.
* 1596 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , VI.12:
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 transitive terms the difference between lose and decline
is that lose is to cause (somebody) to be unable to follow or trace one any longer while decline is to refuse, forbear.lose
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) losen, from (etyl) .Verb
citation, passage=Meanwhile Nanny Broome was recovering from her initial panic and seemed anxious to make up for any kudos she might have lost , by exerting her personality to the utmost. She took the policeman's helmet and placed it on a chair, and unfolded his tunic to shake it and fold it up again for him.}}
Norwich 2-1 Nott'm Forest, passage=Forest, who lost striker Kris Boyd to injury seconds before half-time, produced little after the break, with a Tyson sliced shot from 12 yards their only opportunity of note.}}
- I lost my way in the forest.
- He hath lost his fellows.
- I fought the battle bravely which I lost , / And lost it but to Macedonians.
- O false heart! thou hadst almost betrayed me to eternal flames, and lost me this glory.
- This lost Catholicism any semblance of a claim to special status, and also highlighted the gains which other religious formations had derived from the Revolution.
- I lost a part of what he said.
- How should you go about to lose him a wife he loves with so much passion?
Usage notes
* Do not confuse lose with loose .Synonyms
* (sense, cause to cease to be in one's possession) leave behind, mislay * * drop, shed * * * ditch, drop, dump, get rid of, jettison * * (last)Antonyms
* (sense, cause to cease to be in one's possession) come across, discover, find, gain, acquire, procure, get, pick up, snag * win * gain, put on * * find * pick up * (fail to be the winner) come first, winDerived terms
* lose heart * lose it * lose one's cool * lose one's head * lose one's life * lose one's lunch * lose one's marbles * lose one's mind * lose one's patience * lose one's rag * lose one's temper * lose one's way * lose out * lose patience * lose time * no love lostEtymology 2
From (etyl) (los), (loos), from (etyl) .Noun
- That much he feared least reprochfull blame / With foule dishonour him mote blot therefore; / Besides the losse of so much loos and fame […].
decline
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.