Dwindle vs Sap - What's the difference?
dwindle | sap |
To decrease, shrink, diminish, reduce in size.
* 1802 , , translated by T. Paynell,
(figuratively) To fall away in quality; degenerate, sink.
* Jonathan Swift
* 1919 ,
* '>citation
To lessen; to bring low.
* Thomson
To break; to disperse.
(uncountable) The juice of plants of any kind, especially the ascending and descending juices or circulating fluid essential to nutrition.
(uncountable) The sap-wood, or alburnum, of a tree.
(slang, countable) A simpleton; a saphead; a milksop; a naive person.
(countable, US, slang) A short wooden club; a leather-covered hand weapon; a blackjack.
(rfimage)
(slang) To strike with a sap (with a blackjack).
(military) A narrow ditch or trench made from the foremost parallel toward the glacis or covert way of a besieged place by digging under cover of gabions, etc.
To subvert by digging or wearing away; to mine; to undermine; to destroy the foundation of.
* (rfdate)
(military) To pierce with saps.
To make unstable or infirm; to unsettle; to weaken.
* 1850 ,
To gradually weaken.
* to sap one’s conscience
To proceed by mining, or by secretly undermining; to execute saps — 12
* (rfdate)
As a verb dwindle
is to decrease, shrink, diminish, reduce in size.As a noun sap is
wax.dwindle
English
Verb
(dwindl)- [E]very thing that was improving gradually degenerates and dwindles away to nothing,
- The flattery of his friends began to dwindle into simple approbation.'' (''Goldsmith , Vicar, III)
- Religious societies, though begun with excellent intentions, are said to have dwindled into factious clubs.
- The larger the empire, the more dwindles the mind of the citizen.
- Our drooping days are dwindled down to naught.
- (Clarendon)
References
sap
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) sap, from (etyl) ), from *''sap 'to taste'. More at sage.Noun
(wikipedia sap)Derived terms
(terms derived from sap) * crude sap * elaborated sap * sap ball * sap green * saphead * sapling * sap poison * sap rot * sapsucker * sap tubeEtymology 2
Probably from sapling.Noun
(en noun)Verb
(sapp)Etymology 3
From (etyl) saper (compare Spanish zapar and Italian zappare) from .Noun
(en noun)Derived terms
* sap fagot * sap roller * sapperVerb
(sapp)- Nor safe their dwellings were, for sapped by floods, / Their houses fell upon their household gods.
- Ring out the grief that saps the mind
- Both assaults carried on by sapping .