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Decrease   /dɪkrˈis/  /dˈikrˌis/   Listen
noun
Decrease  n.  
1.
A becoming less; gradual diminution; decay; as, a decrease of revenue or of strength.
2.
The wane of the moon.



verb
Decrease  v. t.  To cause to grow less; to diminish gradually; as, extravagance decreases one's means. "That might decrease their present store."



Decrease  v. i.  (past & past part. decreased; pres. part. decreasing)  To grow less, opposed to increase; to be diminished gradually, in size, degree, number, duration, etc., or in strength, quality, or excellence; as, they days decrease in length from June to December. "He must increase, but I must decrease."
Synonyms: To Decrease, Diminish. Things usually decrease or fall off by degrees, and from within, or through some cause which is imperceptible; as, the flood decreases; the cold decreases; their affection has decreased. Things commonly diminish by an influence from without, or one which is apparent; as, the army was diminished by disease; his property is diminishing through extravagance; their affection has diminished since their separation their separation. The turn of thought, however, is often such that these words may be interchanged. "The olive leaf, which certainly them told The flood decreased." "Crete's ample fields diminish to our eye; Before the Boreal blasts the vessels fly."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Decrease" Quotes from Famous Books



... called [Greek: henae kai nea] (the old and the new), though the other Greeks call it [Greek: triakas] the thirtieth day. Some agricultural operations may be undertaken with more advantage during the increase of the moon, others during the decrease,[88] as, for example, the harvest or cutting ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... fatigue them; but how would it be in a bayonet charge against the enemy, when they want the free use of every muscle, and all their strength thrown forward? I would not give much for their chance of victory. And it is just the same with horses: you fret and worry their tempers, and decrease their power; you will not let them throw their weight against their work, and so they have to do too much with their joints and muscles, and of course it wears them up faster. You may depend upon ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell

... would be raised, their very long transportation must probably make them too dear for any market. I do not apprehend the inhabitants could have any commodities to barter for manufactures except skins and furs, which will naturally decrease as the country increases in people, and the desarts are cultivated; so that in the course of a few years necessity would force them to provide manufactures of some kind for themselves; and when all connection upheld by commerce with the mother country shall cease, it may be expected, that an ...
— Report of the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations on the Petition of the Honourable Thomas Walpole, Benjamin Franklin, John Sargent, and Samuel Wharton, Esquires, and their Associates • Great Britain Board of Trade

... 22,000 are believed to be field laborers, against 81,000, just before emancipation, of men, women, and children, who labored in the field,—a fact which shows the aversion slavery had implanted to laboring on the soil, as well as the indiscreet policy of the planters. Yet, despite this decrease of the most profitable kind of labor, so great is the advantage of freedom over slavery, that the island has been enabled to make this prodigious increase in production and wealth since emancipation,—more than doubling its export of sugar, increasing its imports by $1,200,000, quintupling ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various

... had wooed sleep unsuccessfully. For hours he lay on his cot in the tent, staring out through the flap at the stars. A vague unrest had seized him. He heard the hilarious din of Manti steadily decrease in volume until only intermittent noises reached his ears. But even when comparative peace came he was still ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer


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