Shrink vs Decline - What's the difference?
shrink | decline |
To cause to become smaller.
To become smaller; to contract.
* Francis Bacon
* Dryden
To cower or flinch.
To draw back; to withdraw.
* Milton
(figuratively) To withdraw or retire, as from danger.
* Alexander Pope
* Jowett (Thucyd.)
shrinkage; contraction; recoil
(slang, sometimes, pejorative) A psychiatrist or therapist; a head-shrinker.
* 1994 , (Green Day),
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 shrink and decline
is that shrink is to draw back; to withdraw while decline is to refuse, forbear.In intransitive terms the difference between shrink and decline
is that shrink is to cower or flinch while decline is to become weaker or worse.shrink
English
Verb
- The dryer shrank my sweater.
- This garment will shrink when wet.
- I have not found that water, by mixture of ashes, will shrink or draw into less room.
- And shrink like parchment in consuming fire.
- Molly shrank away from the blows of the whip.
- The Libya Hammon shrinks his horn.
- What happier natures shrink at with affright, / The hard inhabitant contends is right.
- They assisted us against the Thebans when you shrank from the task.
Synonyms
* (avoid an unwanted task) funk, shirkAntonyms
* (to cause to become smaller) expand, grow, enlarge, stretch * (become smaller) expand, grow, enlarge, stretchNoun
(en noun)- Yet almost wish, with sudden shrink , / That I had less to praise. — Leigh Hunt.
- You need to see a shrink .
- My shrink said that he was an enabler, bad for me.
- I went to a shrink , to analyze my dreams. He said it's lack of sex that's bringing my down.''
Usage notes
* The slang sense was originally pejorative, expressing a distrust of practitioners in the field. It is now not as belittling or trivializing.Synonyms
* head-shrinkerdecline
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.