adj, noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A decrease.

   "The number of stitches between the decreasings decreases with every round, so that the decreasings form slanting lines meeting in a point."

Verb

1. 1
   present participle and gerund of decrease form-of, gerund, participle, present

Adjective

1. 1
   On the decrease. not-comparable

Adjective

1. 1
   becoming less or smaller wordnet
2. 2
   (music) decreasing in tempo and/or volume wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

allargandocalandodecliningdecrescendodeliquescentdepreciating

Antonyms

All antonyms

countgrowingincreasing

Example

More examples

"Strangely, the number of students is decreasing each year."

Etymology

From decrease + -ing (participial suffix).

Related phrases

decreasing functionmonotonic decreasingnon-decreasingstrictly decreasingstrictly decreasing function

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