Literally, a leaning from: hence, a falling off; a tendency to a worse state; diminution or decay; deterioration; as, the decline of life; the decline of strength; the decline of virtue and religion; the decline of revenues; the decline of agriculture, commerce or manufactures; the decline of learning.

1. To lean downward; as, the head declines toward the earth.
2. To lean from a right line; to deviate; in a literal sense.
3. To lean or deviate from rectitude, in a moral sense; to leave the path of truth or justice, or the course prescribed. Yet do I not decline from thy testimonies. – Ps. cxix.157.
4. To fall; to tend or draw toward the close; as, the day declines.
5. To avoid or shun; to refuse; not to comply; not to do; as, he declined to take any part in the concern.
6. To fall; to fail; to sink; to decay; to be impaired; to tend to a less perfect state; as, the vigor of youth declines in age; health declines; virtue declines; religion declines; national credit and prosperity decline, under a corrupt administration.
7. To sink; to diminish; to fall in value; as, the prices of land and goods decline at the close of a war.

1. To bend downward; to bring down. In melancholy deep, with head declined. – Thomson.
2. To bend to one side; to move from a fixed point or right line.
3. To shun or avoid; to refuse; not to engage in; to be cautious not to do or interfere; not to accept or comply with; as, he declined the contest; he declined the offer; he declined the business or pursuit.
4. To inflect; to change the termination of a word, for forming the oblique cases; as, Dominus, Domini, Domino, Dominum, Domine.

1. To bend, or lean downward; to take a downward direction; to bend over or hang down, as from weakness, weariness, despondency, etc.; to condescend.
   
   
   "With declining head." Shak.

   He . . . would decline even to the lowest of his family. Lady Hutchinson.

   Disdaining to decline,
   Slowly he falls, amidst triumphant cries. Byron.

   The ground at length became broken and declined rapidly. Sir W. Scott.

2. To bend downward; to bring down; to depress; to cause to bend, or fall.
   
   

   In melancholy deep, with head declined. Thomson.

   And now fair Phoebus gan decline in haste
   His weary wagon to the western vale. Spenser.

3. 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; as, the decline of life; the decline of strength; the decline of virtue and religion.
   
   

   Their fathers lived in the decline of literature. Swift.

4. 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; as, the day declines; virtue declines; religion declines; business declines.
   
   

   That empire must decline
   Whose chief support and sinews are of coin. Waller.

   And presume to know . . .
   Who thrives, and who declines. Shak.

5. To cause to decrease or diminish.
   
   
   [Obs.] "You have declined his means." Beau. *** Fl.

   He knoweth his error, but will not seek to decline it. Burton.

6. That period of a disorder or paroxysm when the symptoms begin to abate in violence; as, the decline of a fever.
7. To turn or bend aside; to deviate; to stray; to withdraw; as, a line that declines from straightness; conduct that declines from sound morals.
   
   

   Yet do I not decline from thy testimonies. Ps. cxix. 157.

8. To put or turn aside] to turn off or away from; to refuse to undertake or comply with; reject; to shun; to avoid; as, to decline an offer; to decline a contest; he declined any participation with them.
   
   

   Could I
   Decline this dreadful hour? Massinger.

9. A gradual sinking and wasting away of the physical faculties; any wasting disease, esp. pulmonary consumption; as, to die of a decline.
   
   
   Dunglison.

   Syn. -- Decline, Decay, Consumption. Decline marks the first stage in a downward progress; decay indicates the second stage, and denotes a tendency to ultimate destruction; consumption marks a steady decay from an internal exhaustion of strength. The health may experience a decline from various causes at any period of life; it is naturally subject to decay with the advance of old age; consumption may take place at almost any period of life, from disease which wears out the constitution. In popular language decline is often used as synonymous with consumption. By a gradual decline, states and communities lose their strength and vigor; by progressive decay, they are stripped of their honor, stability, and greatness; by a consumption of their resources and vital energy, they are led rapidly on to a completion of their existence.

10. To turn away; to shun; to refuse; -- the opposite of accept or consent; as, he declined, upon principle.
11. To inflect, or rehearse in order the changes of grammatical form of; as, to decline a noun or an adjective.
    
    

    * Now restricted to such words as have case inflections; but formerly it was applied both to declension and conjugation.

    After the first declining of a noun and a verb. Ascham.

12. To run through from first to last; to repeat like a schoolboy declining a noun.
    
    
    [R.] Shak.