Adjacent Words

Declension definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

DECLEN'SION, n.
1. Literally, a leaning back or down; hence, a falling or declining towards a worse state; a tendency towards a less degree of excellence or perfection. The declension of a state is manifested by corruption of morals. We speak of the declension of virtue, of manners, of taste, of the sciences, of the fine arts, and sometimes of life or years; but in the latter application, decline is more generally used.
2. Declination; a declining; descent; slope; as the declension of the shore towards the sea.
3. In grammar, inflection of nouns, adjectives and pronouns; the declining, deviation or leaning of the termination of a word from the termination of the nomitive case; change of termination to form the oblique cases. Thus from rex in the nominative case, are formed regis in the genitive, regi in the dative, regem in the accusative, and rege in the ablative.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: the inflection of nouns and pronouns and adjectives in Indo-European languages
2: process of changing to an inferior state [syn: deterioration, decline in quality, declension, worsening]
3: a downward slope or bend [syn: descent, declivity, fall, decline, declination, declension, downslope] [ant: acclivity, ascent, climb, raise, rise, upgrade]
4: a class of nouns or pronouns or adjectives in Indo-European languages having the same (or very similar) inflectional forms; "the first declension in Latin"

Merriam Webster's

noun Etymology: Middle English declenson, modification of Middle French declinaison, from Latin declination-, declinatio grammatical inflection, turning aside, from declinare to inflect, turn aside Date: 15th century 1. a. noun, adjective, or pronoun inflection especially in some prescribed order of the forms b. a class of nouns or adjectives having the same type of inflectional forms 2. a falling off or away ; deterioration 3. descent, slope • declensional adjective

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. 1 Gram. a the variation of the form of a noun, pronoun, or adjective, by which its grammatical case, number, and gender are identified. b the class in which a noun etc. is put according to the exact form of this variation. 2 deterioration, declining. Derivatives: declensional adj. Etymology: OF declinaison f. decliner DECLINE after L declinatio: assim. to ASCENSION etc.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

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.

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. 1. Decline, deterioration, degeneracy, decay, diminution, falling off. 2. (Gram.) Inflection, variation; mode of inflection. 3. Refusal, declination, declinature, nonacceptance.

Moby Thesaurus

IC analysis, abnegation, accidence, affix, affixation, allomorph, bound morpheme, cascade, catabasis, cataract, chute, collapse, comedown, conjugation, contradiction, crash, cutting, debacle, debasement, decadence, decadency, deceleration, declination, declinature, decline, decline and fall, declining, decrescendo, defluxion, deformation, degeneracy, degenerateness, degeneration, degradation, demotion, denial, depravation, depravedness, depreciation, deprivation, derivation, derogation, descending, descension, descent, deterioration, devolution, difference of form, dilapidation, diminuendo, disagreement, disallowance, disclaimer, disclamation, disobedience, dissent, dive, down, downbend, downcome, downcurve, downfall, downflow, downgrade, downpour, downrush, downtrend, downturn, downward mobility, downward trend, drop, dropping, dwindling, dying, ebb, effeteness, enclitic, fading, failing, fall, falling, falling-off, formative, free form, gravitation, holding back, immediate constituent analysis, inclination, infix, infixation, inflection, involution, lapse, loss of tone, morph, morpheme, morphemic analysis, morphemics, morphology, morphophonemics, nay, negation, negative, negative answer, nix, no, nonacceptance, noncompliance, nonconsent, nonobservance, paradigm, plummeting, plunge, pounce, prefix, prefixation, proclitic, radical, rapids, recantation, refusal, regression, rejection, remission, repudiation, retention, retreat, retrocession, retrogradation, retrogression, root, ruination, slippage, slowdown, slump, stem, stoop, subsidence, suffix, suffixation, swoop, theme, thumbs-down, turndown, unwillingness, wane, waterfall, withholding, word-formation