What does "declension" mean?

A falling off, decay or descent.

What is a synonym for "declension"?

Common synonyms include: descent, conjugation, declination, declination, decline, deterioration.

Pronounced //dɪˈklɛn.ʃən//.

//dɪˈklɛn.ʃən// noun

noun ·Common ·High school level

Noun

1
A falling off, decay or descent. countable, uncountable
"Refinement of feeling, intellectual tastes, and a noble hospitality, were among the features of his character; and hoary years brought no mental declension, and drew no shade over the ardent affections by which he was distinguished, and in whose reciprocity, was his undeclining solace."
2
a class of nouns or pronouns or adjectives in Indo-European languages having the same (or very similar) inflectional forms wordnet
3
The act of declining a word; the act of listing the inflections of a noun, pronoun or adjective in order. countable, uncountable
4
a downward slope or bend wordnet
5
The product of that act; a list of declined forms. countable, uncountable
"a page full of declensions"

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6
process of changing to an inferior state wordnet
7
A way of categorizing nouns, pronouns, or adjectives according to the inflections they receive. countable, uncountable
"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."
8
the inflection of nouns and pronouns and adjectives in Indo-European languages wordnet

"Accordingly, besides noun declension patterns, there also existed a greater variety of verb conjugation patterns than in Modern English."

From late Middle English declinson, from Middle French declinaison (Modern French: déclinaison), from Latin dēclīnātiō. Doublet of declination.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.