declining

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of decline.

   Her eyesight has been declining steadily since the accident.

   Declining attendance forced the theater to close its doors early.

   Note

   One spelling does several jobs: the progressive (has been declining), a participle before a noun, and a gerund. Before a noun it usually carries the intransitive meanings of falling or weakening, as in declining health or a declining market. The refusing meaning is transitive, so it appears with an object: declining the invitation, after declining to comment. The countable noun with the plural declinings is the noun for a falling away.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act or process of becoming smaller, weaker, or worse; a gradual falling away in number, strength, or quality.

   The gradual declining of the region's industry left many families without work.

   Historians traced the declining of the dynasty across several troubled decades.

   Similardeterioration, decay, waning, dwindling, erosion

   Oppositegrowth, rise, revival

   Note

   Here the word is a true noun, one that can be counted and made plural. John Whitgift's Admonition to the Parliament (c. 1572) wants a magistrate who might "correct and reform those declinings when they happened," meaning individual lapses, each a falling away from what is right. That plural is the surest way to tell this noun from the verb's gerund, which names an ongoing action and is not counted.

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