to withhold or deny consent to do, enter into or upon, etc.; refuse: He declined to say more about it.
2.
to express inability or reluctance to accept; refuse with courtesy: to decline an invitation; to decline an offer.
3.
to cause to slope or incline downward.
4.
Grammar.
a.
to inflect (a noun, pronoun, or adjective), as Latin puella, declined puella, puellae, puellae, puellam, puella in the five cases of the singular.
b.
to recite or display all or some subset of the inflected forms of a noun, pronoun, or adjective in a fixed order.
–verb (used without object)
5.
to express courteous refusal; refuse: We sent him an invitation but he declined.
6.
to bend or slant down; slope downward; descend: The hill declines to the lake.
7.
(of pathways, routes, objects, etc.) to follow a downward course or path: The sun declined in the skies.
8.
to draw toward the close, as the day.
9.
to fail in strength, vigor, character, value, etc.; deteriorate.
10.
to fail or dwindle; sink or fade away: to decline in popularity.
11.
to descend, as to an unworthy level; stoop.
12.
Grammar. to be characterized by declension.
–noun
13.
a downward slope; declivity.
14.
a downward movement, as of prices or population; diminution: a decline in the stock market.
15.
a failing or gradual loss, as in strength, character, power, or value; deterioration: the decline of the Roman Empire.
16.
a gradual deterioration of the physical powers, as in later life or in disease: After his seventieth birthday he went into a decline.
17.
progress downward or toward the close, as of the sun or the day.
18.
the later years or last part: He became an editor in the decline of his life.
[Origin: 1275–1325; (v.) ME declinen < OF: to inflect, turn aside, sink < L déclīnāre to slope, incline, bend; cf. Gk klnein to lean1; (n.) ME declin < OF, deriv. of decliner]
To refuse politely: I declined their offer of help. See Synonyms at refuse1.
To cause to slope or bend downward.
Grammar To inflect (a noun, a pronoun, or an adjective) for number and case.
n.
The process or result of declining, especially a gradual deterioration.
A downward movement.
The period when something approaches an end.
A downward slope; a declivity.
A disease that gradually weakens or wastes the body.
[Middle English declinen, from Old French decliner, from Latin dēclīnāre, to turn away, bend downward, change the form of a word : dē-, de- + -clīnāre, to lean, bend; see klei- in Indo-European roots.]
c.1327, "to turn aside, deviate," from O.Fr. decliner "to bend, turn aside," from L. declinare "to bend from, inflect," from de- "from" + clinare "to bend," from PIE *klei-n-, suffixed form of *klei "to lean" (see lean (v.)). Sense has been altered since 15c. by interpretation of de- as "downward." Meaning "not to consent" is from 1631. Astronomical declination (c.1386) and grammatical declension (1565) are both ult. from L. noun derivative declinatio.
Con*sump"tion\ (?; 215), n. [L. consumptio: cf. F. consomption.]1. The act or process of consuming by use, waste, etc.; decay; destruction. Every new advance of the price to the consumer is a new incentive to him to retrench the quality of his consumption. --Burke. 2. The state or process of being consumed, wasted, or diminished; waste; diminution; loss; decay. 3. (Med.) A progressive wasting away of the body; esp., that form of wasting, attendant upon pulmonary phthisis and associated with cough, spitting of blood, hectic fever, etc.; pulmonary phthisis; -- called also pulmonary consumption. Consumption of the bowels (Med.), inflammation and ulceration of the intestines from tubercular disease. Syn: Decline; waste; decay. See Decline.
De*cay"\, n. 1. Gradual failure of health, strength, soundness, prosperity, or of any species of excellence or perfection; tendency toward dissolution or extinction; corruption; rottenness; decline; deterioration; as, the decay of the body; the decay of virtue; the decay of the Roman empire; a castle in decay. Perhaps my God, though he be far before, May turn, and take me by the hand, and more - May strengthen my decays. --Herbert. His [Johnson's] failure was not to be ascribed to intellectual decay. --Macaulay. Which has caused the decay of the consonants to follow somewhat different laws. --James Byrne. 2. Destruction; death. [Obs.] --Spenser. 3. Cause of decay. [R.] He that plots to be the only figure among ciphers, is the decay of the whole age. --Bacon. Syn: Decline; consumption. See Decline.
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.
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Audio Help [di-klahyn] Pronunciation Key verb, -clined, -clin·ing, noun 
nein to lean1; (n.) ME declin < OF, deriv. of decliner
