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declension - 3 dictionary results

de⋅clen⋅sion

  [di-klen-shuhn]
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–noun
1. Grammar.
a. the inflection of nouns, pronouns, and adjectives for categories such as case and number.
b. the whole set of inflected forms of such a word, or the recital thereof in a fixed order.
c. a class of such words having similar sets of inflected forms: the Latin second declension.
2. an act or instance of declining.
3. a bending, sloping, or moving downward: land with a gentle declension toward the sea.
4. deterioration; decline.
5. deviation, as from a standard.
Origin:
1400–50; late ME declenson, declynson (with suffix later assimilated to -sion ), by stress retraction and syncope < OF declinaison < L dēclīnātiō declination
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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de·clen·sion   (dĭ-klěn'shən)   
n.  
  1. Linguistics
    1. In certain languages, the inflection of nouns, pronouns, and adjectives in categories such as case, number, and gender.
    2. A class of words of one language with the same or a similar system of inflections, such as the first declension in Latin.
  2. A descending slope; a descent.
  3. A decline or decrease; deterioration: "States and empires have their periods of declension" (Laurence Sterne).
  4. A deviation, as from a standard or practice.

[Middle English declenson, from Old French declinaison, from Latin dēclīnātiō, dēclīnātiōn-, grammatical declension, declination; see declination.]
de·clen'sion·al adj.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Declension

De*clen"sion\, n. [Apparently corrupted fr. F. d['e]clinaison, fr. L. declinatio, fr. declinare. See Decline, and cf. Declination.]

1. The act or the state of declining; declination; descent; slope.

The declension of the land from that place to the sea. --T. Burnet.

2. A falling off towards a worse state; a downward tendency; deterioration; decay; as, the declension of virtue, of science, of a state, etc.

Seduced the pitch and height of all his thoughts To base declension. --Shak.

3. Act of courteously refusing; act of declining; a declinature; refusal; as, the declension of a nomination.

4. (Gram.) (a) Inflection of nouns, adjectives, etc., according to the grammatical cases. (b) The form of the inflection of a word declined by cases; as, the first or the second declension of nouns, adjectives, etc. (c) Rehearsing a word as declined.

Note: The nominative was held to be the primary and original form, and was likened to a perpendicular line; the variations, or oblique cases, were regarded as fallings (hence called casus, cases, or fallings) from the nominative or perpendicular; and an enumerating of the various forms, being a sort of progressive descent from the noun's upright form, was called a declension. --Harris.

Declension of the needle, declination of the needle.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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