English Dictionary

decline

/dɪˈklaɪn/

verb

(intransitive) To move downwards, to fall, to drop. / (intransitive) To become weaker or worse. / (transitive) To bend downward; to bring down; to depress; to cause to bend, or fall.

She watched the sun decline below the horizon.

意味（1）

(intransitive) To move downwards, to fall, to drop.

The dollar has declined rapidly since 2001.

意味（2）

(intransitive) To become weaker or worse.

My health declined in winter.

意味（3）

(transitive) To bend downward; to bring down; to depress; to cause to bend, or fall.

in melancholy site, with head declined

意味（4）

(transitive) To cause to decrease or diminish.

You have declin'd his means.

意味（5）

To turn or bend aside; to deviate; to stray; to withdraw.

a line that declines from straightness

意味（6）

(transitive) To choose not to do something; refuse, forbear, refrain.

Could I decline this dreadful hour?

意味（7）

(transitive, grammar, usually of substantives, adjectives and pronouns) To inflect for case, number, gender, and the like.

意味（8）

(transitive, grammar) To recite all the different declined forms of (a word).

after the first declining of a noun and a verb

意味（9）

(by extension) To run through from first to last; to recite in order as though declining a noun.

Decline all this, and see what now thou art. For happy wife, a most distressed widow;

For joyful mother, one that wails the name;

For one being sued to, one that humbly sues;

Decline all this, and see what now thou art. For happy wife, a most distressed widow; For joyful mother, one that wails the name; For one being sued to, one that humbly sues; For queen , a very caitiff crown'd with care[…]

意味（10）

(American football, Canadian 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.