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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.

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Etymology of 'Diminish'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Diminish" Quotes from Famous Books

... habits of living on a natural basis, promote elimination, teach correct breathing and wholesome exercise, correct the mechanical lesions of the spine, establish the right mental and emotional attitude and, in so far as they succeed in doing this, they build health and diminish the possibility of disease. The successful doctor of the future will have to fall in line with the procession and do more teaching ...

— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr

... of teaching them either humility or moderation. What then could the wisest legislator do, more useful, more benevolent, more necessary, than to establish general rules of conduct, which have a continual tendency to restore moral and natural order, and to diminish the wide inequality produced by pride and avarice? Nor is there any greater danger that these precepts should be too rigidly observed, than that the bulk of mankind should injure themselves by too abstemious a temperance. All that can be expected from human weakness, even after ...

— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... second place, by raising prices, it stimulates importation from those localities where abundance reigns and prices are low. It thus in the long run does much to equalize the pressure of a time of dearth and diminish those extreme oscillations of prices which interfere with the even, healthy course of trade. A government which, in a season of high prices, does anything to check such speculation, acts about as sagely as the skipper of ...

— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... found your life distasteful? My life did, and does, smack sweet. Was your youth of pleasure wasteful? Mine I saved and hold complete. Do your joys with age diminish? When mine fail me, I 'll complain. Must in death your daylight finish? My ...

— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... the situation was manifested by his use of the besieging force as a depot which was from time to time called upon to furnish drafts for service elsewhere. Joubert's absence on the raid towards the south did not sensibly diminish the retaining power of the attack, and although the loss of several thousand Free State burghers who were transferred to Cronje's command on the Modder or to Delarey's at Colesberg was in part made up by a reinforcement of Transvaalers, ...

— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited

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