Smotix Dictionary & Brain Game Platform

Play free daily word puzzles, logic challenges, and speed games.

decline

/dɪˈklaɪn/

Smotix Dictionary

To move downwards, to fall, to drop.
"The dollar has declined rapidly since 2001."
To become weaker or worse.
"My health declined in winter."
To bend downward; to bring down; to depress; to cause to bend, or fall.
To cause to decrease or diminish.
To turn or bend aside; to deviate; to stray; to withdraw.
"a line that declines from straightness"
To refuse, forbear.
"On reflection I think I will decline your generous offer."
(grammar, usually of substantives, adjectives and pronouns) To inflect for case, number and sometimes gender.
(by extension) To run through from first to last; to repeat like a schoolboy declining a noun.
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."