Decline: Refusing Politely, and Falling Steadily
To decline is to refuse politely, or to decrease. As a noun it means a gradual fall, and in grammar it means listing the forms of a noun.
Decline covers refusal and decrease, and both come from the same picture of turning away or bending down. Its politeness is real: declining an invitation is the courteous form of refusing one, and the word does the softening on its own.
- To refuse politely. *She declined the offer.*
- To decrease. *Sales declined by twelve per cent.*
- A gradual fall (noun). *A steady decline in numbers.*
- To list grammatical forms. *Decline the noun in all six cases.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Verb | decline | Decline the invitation. |
| Noun | decline | In decline. |
| Adjective | declining | Declining numbers. |
| Noun | declension | Latin declensions. |
| Opposite | incline | The road inclines steeply. |
How it is used in a sentence
- He declined to comment.Decline to plus a verb — the standard formula in news writing.
- The industry has been in decline for a decade.In decline is the fixed phrase.
- The card was declined.Refused by the bank — a small everyday humiliation.
Decline, refuse, reject and turn down
- Decline — refuse politely, and the most formal option
- Refuse — say no plainly, with no softening
- Reject — refuse to accept, and often stronger
- Turn down — informal, and used for offers and applications
- Rebuff — refuse sharply, and always unkindly
From Latin *declinare*, to bend away, from *de* and *clinare*, to lean. The grammatical sense comes from the same idea: the forms of a Latin noun were pictured as bending away from the base form.
Decline or refuse?
Decline is more polite and more formal. Refuse is blunt and can sound confrontational.
What is a declension?
The set of forms a noun takes for different grammatical cases. Latin has five declensions; English has almost nothing left of the system.