fade

Formsfades, fading, faded

Pluralfades

1. 1
   verbintransitive

   To lose freshness, color, or brightness, becoming faint in hue or tint.

   Cheap dyes fade quickly when clothes are washed in hot water.

   The poster on the wall had faded almost to white.

   Similarbleach, pale, discolor, dull

   Oppositebrighten

   Note

   Here the loss is in the surface, not the life. Milton's flowers "that never fade" in Paradise Lost (1667) keep their color, and Margery Allingham's walls, once "a vivid blue", have "now faded". The past participle settles easily into an adjective for things already pale, as in faded denim or a faded photograph. Strength and vitality belong to the "wither and weaken" meaning.

2. 2
   verbintransitive

   To sink away gradually, growing dim or faint until vanishing.

   Daylight faded as the storm clouds rolled in.

   Hopes of a rescue began to fade after the third day.

   Similardim, wane, dwindle, diminish, evaporate

   Oppositegrow, brighten, intensify, strengthen

   Note

   The broadest of the verb's meanings, used for sounds, images and memories as readily as for light. Prepositions do much of the work. Whistling fades into the distance, an image fades from the mind, and Boston's "More Than a Feeling" (1976) uses it for remembered people dimming with time. Shakespeare's dying swan in The Merchant of Venice goes out "fading in music".

3. 3
   verbintransitive

   To grow weak and lose strength, decaying or perishing gradually, as a plant withers.

   The old man's health faded steadily through the winter.

   Garden roses fade quickly once the first frost arrives.

   Similarwither, wilt, decline, wane, weaken

   Oppositeflourish, thrive, bloom, revive

   Note

   Here the verb stays closest to the old Middle Dutch sense of "weak, faint, limp". What fades is losing life or strength, not color. It often takes away, as in the King James Bible of 1611: "The earth mourneth and fadeth away." It is intransitive. Health, strength and flowers fade of themselves, and nothing is said to fade them.

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To cause something to lose its color, brightness, or strength.

   Repeated washing faded the team's once-vivid jerseys.

   Designers sometimes fade denim on purpose for a worn look.

   Similarbleach, dull, discolor, lighten

   Oppositebrighten

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A gradual decrease in the brightness of a shot or the volume of sound, used to cut to a new scene or start a new song.

   Slow fades between scenes gave the documentary a dreamy feel.

   The song closes on a gentle fade instead of an abrupt cut.

   Note

   Film and recording share the word. On screen the picture dims, and on a record the volume drops. Either way the fade is a transition device, a way of leaving one scene or song for the next rather than stopping dead. Editors and engineers who make one are using the causative verb: they fade the picture or fade the track.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   A haircut in which the hair is shaved or cut very short at the sides and left longer on top, blending gradually between the two lengths.

   The barber gave him a sharp fade with crisp edges.

   Skin fades require regular trips to keep the sides clean.

   Note

   A barbershop word that rarely travels alone. Clients ask for a low fade, a high-top fade or a skin fade, and the qualifier carries the detail that the bare noun leaves open. It counts like any haircut: a fade, two fades, a fresh fade.

7. 7
   nouncountable

   A golf shot deliberately curved to the right for a right-handed player, or to the left for a left-hander.

   The pro shaped a delicate fade into the narrow fairway.

   On dogleg holes, controlled fades can shave strokes off a round.

   Similarcut

   Oppositedraw

   Note

   Golfers name it together with the draw, its counterpart in the language of shot shapes. James Lythgoe's The Golf Swing (2011) advises hitting straight shots while a swing develops, so that neither shape becomes a habit. What separates a fade from a stray curve is intent: the shot is planned. A player who plays one is using the golf verb, fading the ball.

8. 8
   verbtransitive

   To strike the ball so that it curves intentionally to the side, in the shot known as a fade.

   She faded her approach to hold the firm green.

   Good players can fade the ball on demand.

   Similarcut

   Oppositedraw

   Note

   The verb takes the ball or the shot as its object: you fade the ball, or fade an approach. Gary McCord's Golf For Dummies (2011) praises a player who "faded the ball from left to right with great consistency" and so "seldom had to worry about trouble on the left". The appeal of a dependable shape is that it takes one side of the hole out of play.

9. 9
   nounslangcountable

   A fight, especially a physical confrontation between two people.

   The argument nearly turned into a fade in the parking lot.

   Word spread fast about the fades planned for after the match.

   Similarfight, scrap, brawl, scuffle, rumble

   Note

   Street slang that belongs in speech, not formal writing, often in phrases like catch a fade. It has an awkward neighbor in the slang "slipping away" noun, so the same word can mean squaring up or disappearing. Context has to settle which is meant: someone who wants a fade is staying, and someone who does a fade is gone.

10. 10
    nounslangcountable

    The act of slipping away from a place unnoticed, so as not to be found; a covert departure.

    His midnight fade left the crew without a leader.

    A series of quiet fades let the informant avoid detection.

    Similardisappearance, getaway, escape, exit

    Note

    Slang with a criminal edge, usually built with do: in Stephen King's Needful Things (1991), Ace "could have done a fade" but gathers his courage instead. The noun turns the "vanish gradually" verb into a deliberate act, and the departure is planned and hidden, not a drift.

11. 11
    verbtransitive

    To bet against someone, wagering that the person or pick will lose.

    Sharp gamblers faded the public money on the underdog.

    He likes to fade tipsters who post too confidently online.

    Oppositeback, tail

    Note

    A gambler's verb whose object is the bettor, not the result. To fade someone is to take the other side of their wager. In Johnny Hughes's A Texas Beauty (2016), the speaker wanted to bet on a marriage, "but nobody would fade me": no one would cover the bet. A bettor can also fade a team or a pick, wagering that it will lose.

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