decline

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To express polite refusal.
2. v. To slope downward; descend.
3. v. To bend downward; droop.
4. v. To degrade or lower oneself; condescend.
5. v. To deteriorate gradually; fail.
6. v. To sink, as the setting sun.
7. v. To draw to a gradual close; wane.
8. v. To refuse politely: I declined their offer of help. See Synonyms at refuse¹.
9. v. To cause to slope or bend downward.
10. v. Grammar To inflect (a noun, a pronoun, or an adjective) for number and case.
11. n. The process or result of declining, especially a gradual deterioration.
12. n. A downward movement.
13. n. The period when something approaches an end.
14. n. A downward slope; a declivity.
15. n. A disease that gradually weakens or wastes the body.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To cause to bend or slope; bend down; incline; cause to assume an inclined position; depress.
2. To lower; degrade; debase.
3. To decrease; diminish; reduce.
4. To cause to deviate from a straight or right course; turn aside; deflect.
5. To turn aside from; deviate from.
6. To avoid by moving out of the way; shun; avoid in general.
7. To refuse; refuse or withhold consent to do, accept, or enter upon: as, to decline a contest; to decline an offer.
8. In grammar, to inflect, as a noun or an adjective; give the case-forms of a noun or an adjective in their order: as, dominus, domini, domino, dominum, domine. Synonyms See refuse.
9. To bend or slant down; assume an inclined position; hang down; slope or trend downward; descend: as, the sun declines toward the west.
10. To deviate from a right line; specifically, to deviate from a line passing through the north and south points.
11. To deviate from a course or an object; turn aside; fall away; wander.
12. To sink to a lower level; sink down; hence, figuratively, to fall into an inferior or impaired condition; lose strength, vigor, character, or value; fall off; deteriorate.
13. To stoop, as to an unworthy object; lower one's self; condescend.
14. To refuse; express refusal: as, he was invited, but declined.
15. To approach or draw toward the close.
16. To incline; tend.
17. To incline morally; be favorably disposed.
18. n. A bending or sloping downward; a slope; declivity; incline.
19. n. A descending; progress downward or toward a close.
20. n. A failing or deterioration; a sinking into an impaired or inferior condition; falling off; loss of strength, character, or value; decay.
21. n. In medicine: That stage of a disease when the characteristic symptoms begin to abate in violence.
22. n. A popular term for any chronic disease in which the strength and plumpness of the body gradually diminish, until the patient dies: as, he is in a decline.
23. n. The time of life when the physical and mental powers are failing. Quain. Synonyms Degeneracy, falling off, drooping.
24. In chess, to refuse to take a piece or pawn offered.

Wiktionary

1. n. Downward movement, fall.
2. n. A sloping downward, e.g. of a hill or road.
3. n. A weakening.
4. n. A reduction or diminution of activity.
5. v. intransitive To move downwards, to fall, to drop.
6. v. intransitive To become weaker or worse.
7. v. transitive To refuse, forbear.
8. v. transitive, grammar To list the inflected forms of a noun, pronoun (and in some languages adjective) for case and number.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. To bend, or lean downward; to take a downward direction; to bend over or hang down, as from weakness, weariness, despondency, etc.; to condescend.
2. v. To tend or draw towards a close, decay, or extinction; to tend to a less perfect state; to become diminished or impaired; to fail; to sink; to diminish; to lessen
3. v. To turn or bend aside; to deviate; to stray; to withdraw
4. v. To turn away; to shun; to refuse; -- the opposite of accept or consent.
5. v. To bend downward; to bring down; to depress; to cause to bend, or fall.
6. v. obsolete To cause to decrease or diminish.
7. v. To put or turn aside; to turn off or away from; to refuse to undertake or comply with; reject; to shun; to avoid
8. v. (Gram.) To inflect, or rehearse in order the changes of grammatical form of.
9. v. rare To run through from first to last; to repeat like a schoolboy declining a noun.
10. n. A falling off; a tendency to a worse state; diminution or decay; deterioration; also, the period when a thing is tending toward extinction or a less perfect state
11. n. (Med.) That period of a disorder or paroxysm when the symptoms begin to abate in violence.
12. n. A gradual sinking and wasting away of the physical faculties; any wasting disease, esp. pulmonary consumption.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. go down
2. n. change toward something smaller or lower
3. n. a gradual decrease; as of stored charge or current
4. n. a condition inferior to an earlier condition; a gradual falling off from a better state
5. v. go down in value
6. v. inflect for number, gender, case, etc.,
7. v. show unwillingness towards
8. v. refuse to accept
9. v. grow worse
10. n. a downward slope or bend
11. v. grow smaller