Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Declension
De-clen′sion
,Noun.
[Apparently corrupted fr. F.
déclinaison
, fr. L. declinatio
, fr. declinare
. See Decline
, and cf. Declination
.] 1.
The act or the state of declining; declination; descent; slope.
The
declension
of the land from that place to the sea. T. Burnet.
2.
A falling off towards a worse state; a downward tendency; deterioration; decay;
as, the
declension
of virtue, of science, of a state, etc.Seduced the pitch and height of all his thoughts
To base
To base
declension
. Shakespeare
3.
Act of courteously refusing; act of declining; a declinature; refusal;
as, the
. declension
of a nomination4.
(Gram.)
(a)
Inflection of nouns, adjectives, etc., according to the grammatical cases.
(b)
The form of the inflection of a word declined by cases;
as, the first or the second
declension
of nouns, adjectives, etc. (c)
Rehearsing a word as declined.
☞ The nominative was held to be the primary and original form, and was likened to a perpendicular line; the variations, or oblique cases, were regarded as fallings (hence called casus, cases, or fallings) from the nominative or perpendicular; and an enumerating of the various forms, being a sort of progressive descent from the noun’s upright form, was called a declension.
Harris.
Declension of the needle
, declination of the needle.
Webster 1828 Edition
Declension
DECLEN'SION
, n.Definition 2024
declension
declension
English
Noun
declension (plural declensions)
- (grammar) The act of declining a word; the act of listing the inflections of a noun, pronoun or adjective in order.
- (grammar) A way of categorizing nouns, pronouns, or adjectives according to the inflections they receive.
- In Latin, 'amicus' belongs to the second declension. Most second-declension nouns end in '-i' in the genitive singular and '-um' in the accusative singular.
Synonyms
Hyponyms
Hypernyms
Coordinate terms
Derived terms
Translations
way of categorizing nouns
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act of declining
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