decreasing

Pluraldecreasings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of decrease.

   Reservoir levels are decreasing as the drought drags on.

   Decreasing his work hours gave him more time at home.

   Note

   The form behind progressive tenses and -ing clauses, and it keeps both uses of decrease. It can stand without an object (levels are decreasing) or take one (decreasing his hours). As a gerund it fills a noun slot, as in the decreasing of supplies, and names the ongoing process rather than the amount. For the amount itself, the noun decrease is the usual word.

2. 2
   adjective

   Growing steadily smaller or less in amount; on the decline.

   Economists worried about the decreasing value of the currency.

   A decreasing birth rate has reshaped the country's school system.

   Similardiminishing, dwindling, shrinking

   Oppositeincreasing, rising

   Note

   An adjective that grew out of the participle and works mostly before a noun: a decreasing birth rate, the decreasing value of a currency. It does not take degrees, so nothing is 'more decreasing' or 'very decreasing.' To say how fast the decline runs, add an adverb such as steadily or rapidly. After be, the same form usually reads as the verb in progress: the rate is decreasing.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   In knitting, a point in the work where the number of stitches is reduced.

   Space the decreasings evenly around the yoke so the sweater sits snugly at the neck.

   Each decreasing in the pattern narrows the sleeve toward the wrist.

   Note

   A knitter's word for the places where stitches are taken away to shape the fabric. They are worked at the same points in each round, with fewer stitches between them every time, so they line up into slanting lines that meet in a point. Mrs. Beeton's Book of Needlework describes exactly this pattern. It is a countable noun, and because any shaping takes many of them, patterns usually speak of decreasings in the plural.

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