DIMINISH • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Diminish

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/dɪmˈɪnɪʃ/ Listen

verb

Diminish v. t. (past & past part. diminished; pres. part. diminishing)

1.

To make smaller in any manner; to reduce in bulk or amount; to lessen; opposed to augment or increase. "Not diminish, but rather increase, the debt."

2.

To lessen the authority or dignity of; to put down; to degrade; to abase; to weaken. "This doth nothing diminish their opinion." "I will diminish them, that they shall no more rule over the nations." "O thou... at whose sight all the stars Hide their diminished heads."

3.

(Mus.) To make smaller by a half step; to make (an interval) less than minor; as, a diminished seventh.

4.

To take away; to subtract. "Neither shall ye diminish aught from it."

Diminished column, one whose upper diameter is less than the lower.

Diminished scale, or Diminishing scale, a scale of gradation used in finding the different points for drawing the spiral curve of the volute.

Diminishing rule (Arch.), a board cut with a concave edge, for fixing the entasis and curvature of a shaft.

Diminishing stile (Arch.), a stile which is narrower in one part than in another, as in many glazed doors.

Synonyms: To decrease; lessen; abate; reduce; contract; curtail; impair; degrade. See Decrease.

Diminish v. i. To become or appear less or smaller; to lessen; as, the apparent size of an object diminishes as we recede from it.

See images of 'Diminish'

Etymology of 'Diminish'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Diminish" Quotes from Famous Books

... Bouisson, his tailor, so in 1842 he took a lodging in the same house with his sister, Madame Surville, at 28, Rue du Faubourg Poissonniere. Life was brightening for him; he was beginning by his strenuous efforts to diminish perceptibly his load of debt, and the star of hope ...

— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars

... our economic relations the final effect of all our conduct upon those with whom we deal is to replenish or diminish their life. The wage question is at bottom a question of more or less life for the wage-worker. Starvation wages are wages by which the hold upon life of the wage-earner and his wife and children is weakened. Systems of industry are good in proportion as ...

— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser

... your joys with age diminish? When mine fail me, I'll complain. Must in death your daylight finish? My sun ...

— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons

... to diminish his joy in the very fact of living, even less did they affect his powers of work. His father had declared that 'procrastination was his besetting sin,' and Mozart was certainly given to putting off ...

— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham

... for truth, that manliness and genuine loyalty, and scorn of littleness and unfair advantage, and genuine faith and godliness and large-heartedness should diminish, among statesmen and people, as civilization advances, and freedom becomes more general, and universal suffrage implies universal worth and fitness! In the age of Elizabeth, without universal suffrage, or Societies for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, ...

— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

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