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Declension   Listen
noun
Declension  n.  
1.
The act or the state of declining; declination; descent; slope. "The declension of the land from that place to the sea."
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 declension."
3.
Act of courteously refusing; act of declining; a declinature; refusal; as, the declension of a nomination.
4.
(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. Note: 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.
Declension of the needle, declination of the needle.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Declension" Quotes from Famous Books



... greatly pleased. I had already begun Latin with my father, and had vainly endeavoured to share my educational advantages with Mrs. Bundle, by teaching her the first declension. ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... Philippians (ii. 10), which says that "at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow." But there are many congregations in which this has been the long-established rule, and there are many Christians who would feel pained to see such a practice discontinued—as if it implied a declension from the reverence due to "that name which is above every name." Now what in this case is the Christian duty? Is it this—to stand upon our Christian liberty? Or is it not rather this—to comply with a prejudice which is manifestly a harmless ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson

... many predictions given in the word of God touching the last days, is one which foretokens a wide-spread and lamentable declension in the religious world. The phrase which embodies it, is the one just quoted, "Babylon is fallen." The term "Babylon" is not intended nor used as a term of reproach, but rather as a descriptive word setting forth the very undesirable condition of "mixture" and "confusion" in the religious world. ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith

... end in nouns which are of the same declension this is properly called Homoioptolon, as the ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... Bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits; for he had been Tim's blood horse all the way from church, and had come home rampant. "Not coming upon ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... the Latine Tongue, by a method of Vocabulary and Grammar; the former comprising the Primitives, whether Noun or Verb, ranked in their several Cases; the latter teaching the forms of Declension and Conjugation, with all possible plainness: To which is added the Hermonicon, viz. A Table of those Latin words, which their sound and signification being meerly resembled by, the English are the sooner learned thereby, for the use of Merchant Taylors School, ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May

... and lax living among the people. "What are the reasons that have provoked the Lord to bring his judgments upon New England?" Such was the primary question which the Synod of 1679 was called upon to answer. "Declension from the primitive foundation work, innovation in doctrine and worship"—this, according to a committee of the deputies, was the true cause. "A spirit of division, persecuting and oppressing of God's ministers and precious saints," ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker

... invented to distinguish similar sounds. So that, at the present day, anyone who says ma will mean either an exclamation, hemp, horse, or curse according to the quality he gives to the sound. The language remains in a primitive state, without inflexion, declension, or distinction of parts of speech. The order in a sentence is: subject, verb, complement direct, complement indirect. Gender is formed by distinctive particles; number by prefixing numerals, etc.; cases by position or appropriate prepositions. Adjectives precede nouns; position determines ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner

... It is a sad declension in an eminent classic, that he, whose reference to the primitive heathen Ulysses torturing the shade of his own mother is rather revolting than elevating, should be full of wonder ...
— Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men • John Harris

... which they were dictated by Jeremiah—in fact only a probable reference to Egypt's invasion of Palestine in 608, Ch. II. 16, and part, if not all, of Ch. III. 6-18. The general theme is a historical retrospect—Israel's early loyalty to her God, and her subsequent declension to the worship of other gods, figured as adultery; along with a profession of penitence by the people, to which God responds by a stern call to a deeper repentance and thorough reform; failing this, her doom, though vaguely described ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... liked to have introduced a proviso about Alfred, but the title Mount Rorke slipped between her thoughts, and she refrained. She knew the present treaty secured her immunity from Sally only so long as the affections and attentions of Jimmy and Charley showed no signs of declension, and she was aware that her promise would only hold good so long as Frank interested and Charley remained ...
— Spring Days • George Moore

... history as a minister of dauntless courage. He breasted the destructive flood of declension, and endured the buffeting of the waves. His humility prepared him for great service in the kingdom of God. He was deeply grieved by reason of the loose doctrines and practices prevailing within ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters

... Church gloried over the declension of Judaism. In presence of Benedict XIII, antipope, a Spaniard, wandering in Spain, because in Rome they would not own him, a formal disputation was carried on for sixty-nine days between Jerome of Santa Fe and other converts—or, as the Jews ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... In the declension of nouns I was informed that anciently there were eight cases (one more than in the Sanskrit Grammar); but the effect of time has been to reduce these cases, and multiply, instead of these varying terminations, explanatory propositions. ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... bears upon the education and youthful happiness of the poet. Now if we suppose that from 1568, the high noon of the family prosperity, to 1578, the first year of their mature embarrassments, one half the interval was passed in stationary sunshine, and the latter half in the gradual twilight of declension, it will follow that the young William had completed his tenth year before he heard the first signals of distress; and for so long a period his education would probably be conducted on as liberal a scale as the resources of Stratford would ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... origin of (66) Latin words. In the fourth book, he traces those which relate to place; in the fifth, those connected with the idea of time; and in the sixth, the origin of both these classes, as they appear in the writings of the poets. The seventh book is employed on declension; in which the author enters upon a minute and extensive enquiry, comprehending a variety of acute and profound observations on the formation of Latin nouns, and their respective natural declinations from the nominative case. In the eighth, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... Decembro. Decent deca. Deception trompo. Decide decidi. Decided decida. Decimal decimalo. Decipher decxifri. Decisive decidiga. Deck (adorn) ornami. Deck (ship) ferdeko. Declaim deklami. Declaration deklaracio. Declaration (of love) amesprimo. Declare sciigi, anonci. Declension deklinacio. Decline ekfinigxo. Decline (health) ekmalfortigxi. Decline (refuse) rifuzi. Decline (grammar) deklinacii. Decline (in price) malplikarigxo. Declivity deklivo. Decompose dismeti. Decorate ornami. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... Peace, which you seem averse to. Remember the Sun rises, comes to its Meridian Height, and stays not there, but declines in a Moment. Let this admonish you to reflect on the constant Revolution of all sublunary Affairs, and the greater is your Glory, the nearer you are to your Declension. We are taught by every Thing we see, that there is no Stability in the World, but Nature is in continual Movement. The Sea, which o'er flows the Sands has its Bounds set, which it cannot pass, which the Moment it has reached, ...
— Of Captain Mission • Daniel Defoe

... Great, by Michael Field, is in many respects a really remarkable work of art. Its tragic element is to be found in life, not in death; in the hero's psychological development, not in his moral declension or in any physical calamity; and the author has borrowed from modern science the idea that in the evolutionary struggle for existence the true tragedy may be that of the survivor. Canute, the rough generous Viking, finds himself ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... bear, is still not so extensive as that of the ursus americanus. The great chain or cordillera of the Rocky Mountains may be taken as the axis of his range—since he is found throughout its whole extent, from Mexico to its declension near the shores of the Arctic Sea. Some writers have asserted that he is confined to these mountains, but that is an error. To the west of them he is encountered throughout all the countries lying between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific coast— wherever circumstances are favourable ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid

... and (what is doubtless preferable to her) the francs of numerous customers and admirers. The "wealth of either Ind" sparkles upon her hand, or glitters upon her attire: and if the sun of her beauty be somewhat verging towards its declension, it sets with a glow which reminds her old acquaintance of the splendour of its noon-day power. It is yet a sharply contested point whether the ice of this house be preferable to that of Tortoni: a point, too intricate and momentous for my solution. "Non nostrum est ... tantas ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... as much pride in bringing to my office a good loaf of bread, or a well-prepared dish of vegetables or meat as they do in being able to give a perfect demonstration of a theorem in geometry, or a perfect conjugation or declension of a Latin word. Possibly ten years from now they may have more demand upon their ability to prepare a square meal for a hungry life companion, or to cut out a dress or apron for a younger member of the family than they will have need ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing

... of delineation meet, and run into, and correct one another, assuming such a natural and vital form, that there is no making of a point anywhere; and the woman is shown after no theory, but according to the natural laws of human declension, we feel that the only way to account for the perfection of the representation is to say that, given a shadow, Shakspere had the power to place himself so, that that shadow became his own—was the correct representation as shadow, of his form coming between it ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald

... impossible Wanderer was concocted, she had had ample leisure, had as yet incurred none of her later domestic sorrows, and was assured of lavish recompense for her (it must be said) absolutely worthless labours. Why this steady declension, with which, considering the character of Cecilia, the court sojourn can have had nothing to do? And admitting it, why still uphold, as the present writer does uphold, Evelina as one of the points de repere of the English novel? Both questions shall ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury

... is needed to realize the moral declension of that time, as it is portrayed—to use a single example—in the sermon by the Bishop of Litchfield before the Society for the Reformation of Manners, in 1724. Lewdness, drunkenness, and degeneracy, he said, were well nigh universal, no class ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton

... to offer me one of your Fergussons. I thank you for it, as I ought; but, in truth, I have more pictures than room to place them; both my houses are full, and I have even been thinking of getting rid of some I have. That this is no declension of your civility, Sir, you will see, when I gladly accept either of your medals of King Charles. I shall be proud to keep it as a mark of your friendship; but then I will undoubtedly rob ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... declension of artificial heat amongst all that have completed their growth. A curtailment in the supply of water, giving merely sufficient to keep them from flagging, will induce the ...
— In-Door Gardening for Every Week in the Year • William Keane

... case of many of these terms, their appearance in Rashi is the earliest known; otherwise they occur only at a later date. And it is not difficult to put the laazim back into French, because of the well-defined system of transcription employed. Even the laws of declension (or what remained of declension in the old French) ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber

... of languages exhibits a fine and bold peculiarity—a double declension of its Adjectives, depending on a condition of syntax. The Anglo-Saxon adjective, in its ordinary (or, as grammarians have called it, Indefinite) declension, makes the nominative plural for all the genders in E; and this remains as the regular plural termination ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... declension, yet could not at once apply a remedy. But in the early months of 1819 he had staying at his parsonage a singularly devoted Methodist preacher whose health had broken down. The chaplain suggested to his guest that he should try the effect of a voyage to New Zealand, ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas

... between custom and innovation, constitutes the essence of vitality in human affairs. The nations by turns are protagonists in the drama of progress; by turns are doomed to play the part of obstructive agents. Intermingled in conflict which is active life, they contribute by their phases of declension and resistance, no less than by their forward movements, to the growth of an organism which shall probably in the far future be coextensive with ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... affected in the same way. In the Anglo-Saxon grammar, nouns and adjectives had declensions as in German; and not very simple ones. "Not only had our old adjectives a declension in three genders, but more than this, it had a double set of trigeneric inflexions, Definite and Indefinite, Strong and Weak, just like that which makes the beginner's despair in German."[404] Verbs were conjugated without auxiliaries; and as there was no particular inflection to indicate the future, ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... almost universal declension, there was ever the remnant—Jew and Gentile—who "endured, seeing the invisible," and strengthening their souls in the special tribulation promise "He that shall endure unto the end, the same ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson

... the Fruites of my Aduice,[7] And he repulsed. A short Tale to make, [Sidenote: repell'd, a] Fell into a Sadnesse, then into a Fast,[8] Thence to a Watch, thence into a Weaknesse, [Sidenote: to a wath,] Thence to a Lightnesse, and by this declension [Sidenote: to lightnes] Into the Madnesse whereon now he raues, [Sidenote: wherein] And all we ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald

... grace enabled her to accomplish was the cause; or, not improbably, a cherished satisfaction in the blessing she had received, instead of in the BLESSER Himself, may have led to the separation. She seems to have been largely unconscious of her declension; self-occupied and self-contented, she scarcely noticed His absence; she was resting, resting alone,—never asking where He had gone, or how He was employed. And more than this, the door of her chamber was not only closed, but barred; an evidence ...
— Union And Communion - or Thoughts on the Song of Solomon • J. Hudson Taylor

... head. Then he hastened to enlighten the wine-waiter, who had been about to refill his glass with port and had construed the gesture as a declension of the nectar. ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... on the green slope of Malvern Hill. The guns of the entire army were massed on the crest, and thirty thousand of our infantry lay, musket in hand, in front. For eight hundred yards the hill sank in easy declension to the wood, and across this smooth expanse the Rebs must charge to reach our lines. It was nothing short of downright insanity to order men to charge that hill; and so his generals told Lee, but he would not listen to ...
— A Ride With A Mad Horse In A Freight-Car - 1898 • W. H. H. Murray

... preserved by memory amongst the Gitanos, its grammatical peculiarities have disappeared, the entire language having been modified and subjected to the rules of Spanish grammar, with which it now coincides in syntax, in the conjugation of verbs, and in the declension of its nouns. Were it possible or necessary to collect all the relics of this speech, they would probably amount to four or five thousand words; but to effect such an achievement, it would be necessary to hold close and long intercourse with almost every Gitano in Spain, and to extract, ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow

... tradesman's dangerous experiment! But if there be any that have fallen into the same condemnation, as it is to be feared some may have done, may God of his mercy admonish them of it, and bring them back before such a declension, begun in the neglect of family religion, shall be consummated in the decay and loss of personal religion, and the growing irreligion both of your family and your ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various

... sun. The custom of rolling a burning wheel down a hill, which is often observed at these ceremonies, might well pass for an imitation of the sun's course in the sky, and the imitation would be especially appropriate on Midsummer Day when the sun's annual declension begins. Indeed the custom has been thus interpreted by some of those who have recorded it.[809] Not less graphic, it may be said, is the mimicry of his apparent revolution by swinging a burning tar-barrel round a pole.[810] Again, the common practice ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... inlaid dressing-case, with velvet-lined compartments mostly empty, or only with little labelled papers of first curls, down as far as 'Edward Clement, 1842,' after which stern reality had absorbed sentiment—a sad declension from the blue enamel shrine with a pearl cypher, where ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... multiplication and vicissitude of forms. There is nothing single and rare in respect of nature, but in respect of our knowledge, which is a wretched foundation whereon to ground our rules, and that represents to us a very false image of things. As we nowadays vainly conclude the declension and decrepitude of the world, by the arguments we extract from our own ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... former land of light and learning, has gradually slipped downwards from her high ideals. A sure and sad process of religious and moral declension has ensued; until, under the baneful influences of Nietzsche, Treitschke, Bernhardi, and their like, the land of the reformation has become the land of militarism, employing forces without justice, discipline without pity, and annexation ...
— With The Immortal Seventh Division • E. J. Kennedy and the Lord Bishop of Winchester

... and customs, and in the curious philosophical traits of the Indian language. It is refreshing to find a person who, in reference to this language, knows the difference between the conjugation of a verb and the declension of a noun. There is a prospect, at least, of getting at the grammatical principles, by which they conjoin and build up words. It has been intolerable to me to converse with Indian traders and interpreters here, who have, for half ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... separate the eras and nations of the most ancient inhabitants from those whose descendants yet remain, is one of the very points at issue. If the descendants of the mound and temple builders yet exist, the traditions of the era have passed from them in the process of their declension. But whoever the builders were, and whether their blood still flows in the existing race or not, they clung, like this race, so firmly to their ancient mythology and religion as to impress it indelibly on the features of their architecture, and in almost ...
— Incentives to the Study of the Ancient Period of American History • Henry R. Schoolcraft

... him—at least, until he has had some practice in this, to him, new process. And it is so with other races. Professor Max Muller once told me in conversation, as nearly as I can recollect, that the Mohawk Indian language is extremely rich in declension, every noun having some sixteen or seventeen inflexions of case, but no nominative. One can express one's relations to a father to a most extraordinary extent, among the dilapidated descendants of that once powerful tribe. But such a thing as the abstract idea of a father, or of 'father' ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland

... attempt to trace this element of Oracles, it will not be difficult to prove that Delphi discharged the office of a central bureau d'administration, a general depot of political information, an organ of universal combination for the counsels of the whole Grecian race. And that which caused the declension of the Oracles was the loss of political independence and autonomy. After Alexander, still more after the Roman conquest, each separate state, having no powers and no motive for asking counsel on state measures, naturally confined itself ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... settlements made in Asia and Northern Africa—Spain in America become possessed of a vast continent and of more than one archipelago of splendid islands. Yet before a century was over the sovereign majesty of Spain underwent a huge declension, the territory under her sway was contracted, the fabulous wealth of the mines of the New World had been wasted, agriculture and industry were ruined, her commerce passed into ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... the top of the stairs, shivering with cold, the magnificent bed, on getting into it, was found comfortable beyond expression. It felt as if it would never cease yielding under the pressure; it sunk down, down, down—there appeared no stop to its declension; and then its delicious warmth—what a luxury to a shivering man! Hugging myself under the idea of a glorious night's rest, and composing myself in the easiest possible position, it was more desirable to lay awake in such full enjoyment, than ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various

... badgers' skins. There were eighteen, and the moths had got into them, so that the draught under the door puffed little drifts of hair over the polished boards. Then he settled down to the first Latin declension—Musa, a muse; vocative, Musa, O muse!; genitive, Musae, of a muse. Honoria ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... they are; in fact, a very large volume might be easily collected of such cases as are of ordinary occurrence. Casuistry, the very word casuistry expresses the science which deals with such cases: for as a case, in the declension of a noun, means a falling away, or a deflection from the upright nominative (rectus), so a case in ethics implies some falling off, or deflection from the high road of catholic morality. Now, of all such cases, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... as are really free by the laws, but who have been reduced to slavery. Of the old Abolition societies, organized in the time, and under the influence of Franklin and Rush and Jay, and the most active of their coadjutors, but few remain. Their declension may be ascribed to this defect,—they did not inflexibly ask for immediate emancipation.—The PENNSYLVANIA ABOLITION SOCIETY, formed in 1789, with DR. FRANKLIN, president, and DR. RUSH, secretary, is still in existence—but unconnected ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... which was literally a "fiery, untamed steed." It had been fed for the market, and had had no exercise for two days previous. I meant to try its paces to St. Jean de Luz, and show off before the damsels of Biarritz; but, lack-a-day! what a declension was in store for me. It had best be given in the words of a letter to my kindly compatriot, written while defeat was fresh in my mind. ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... policy of permitting the conquered to preserve their religion and customs; and the equally excellent determination never to have two enemies upon their hands at once, but to bear everything from the one till they had destroyed the other. He finds the causes of their declension in the aggrandizement of the State itself: in those distant wars, which, obliging the citizens to be too long absent, made them insensibly lose their republican spirit; in the too easily granted privilege of being citizens of Rome, which made the Roman people at last become ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... were sacred to the Druids, so were they to the Israelites in their days of declension. And in Greece we find the famous oracle of Jupiter at the oaks of Dodona. To the ancient inhabitants of Italy the misletoe was a sacred emblem; and the golden branches of Virgil were none other than those ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... stone once set in motion cannot be recalled, because it is then placed under the operation of natural laws which cannot be controlled or altered, so too in Moral declension, there is a point at which gravitation operates irretrievably, "there is a certain bound to imprudence and misbehaviour which being transgressed, there remains no place for repentance in the natural course of things." Bishop Butler's Analogy, ...
— Ethics • Aristotle

... into the next decade and worked till the last with no distinct declension, but she did not complete it, dying in 1876. Her famous direction about her grave, Laissez la verdure, is characteristic of her odd mixture if theatricality and true nature. But if any one wishes to come to her work with a comfortable preoccupation ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... a special notice) will be treated of hereafter. Substantives of the Second Declension form their genitive ...
— Grammatical Sketch of the Heve Language - Shea's Library Of American Linguistics. Volume III. • Buckingham Smith

... Many proper names in this book are words borrowed by Latin from Greek, and have forms not given in the regular Latin declensions. It will not be necessary to learn the declension ...
— Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles - A First Latin Reader • John Kirtland, ed.

... and feast with the gods, exulting in Kudos. And when the talk is over, each goes his way, still flushed with vanity and admiration, still trailing clouds of glory;[6] each declines from the height of his ideal orgie, not in a moment, but by slow declension. I remember, in the entr'acte of an afternoon performance, coming forth into the sunshine, in a beautiful green, gardened corner of a romantic city; and as I sat and smoked, the music moving in my blood, ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... moriturus. c. de contrahend. et committ. stip. Didst thou ever hear the vulgar proverb, Happy is the physician whose coming is desired at the declension of a disease? For the sickness being come to a crisis is then upon the decreasing hand, and drawing towards an end, although the physician should not repair thither for the cure thereof; whereby, though nature wholly do the work, he ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... worthless set than both Dutch and Portuguese I have never read of; and it requires your knowledge of the springs of human action, and your lively description of "hair-breadth 'scapes," to make one care whether the hog bites the dog, or the dog bites the hog. Both nations were in rapid declension from their short-lived age of heroism, and in the act of experiencing all those retrograde movements which are the natural consequence of selfishness on the one hand, and bigotry ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... at seven; I remember them very well. Above all, I recollect the fine excitement of seeing my own name in great long golden letters, with a word after them that Krak told me I ought to know meant "king," and was of the third declension. "Rex, Regis," said Krak, and told poor Victoria to go on. Victoria was far too excited, and Krak said we must both learn it to-morrow; but we were clapping our hands, and didn't pay much heed. Then Hammerfeldt came in and held me up at the window for a few minutes, ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope

... of the declension of nouns, pronouns, and adjectives, as well as the conjugation of verbs in both languages; but the grammatical arrangement of them does not come within the design of this work. The foregoing list of words is a selection of those that are most similar: ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland

... respect to words. Attention is seldom paid to gender; boro rye and boro rawnie being said, though as rawnie is feminine, bori and not boro should be employed. The proper Gypsy plural terminations are retained in nouns, but in declension prepositions are generally substituted for postpositions, and those prepositions English. The proper way of conjugating verbs is seldom or never observed, and the English method is followed. They say, I dick, I see, instead of dico; I dick'd, ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow

... SIR, I shall not write a line to-day, Though many subjects merit my attention. To take one instance only, there is May (The month) at present in her last declension. Lord, what a dance she leads us on her May-toes, And spoils the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various

... landscapes, through which I rode, after leaving the cabin of my hospitable host. It was the season of "Indian summer"—that singular phenomenon of the occidental clime, when the sun, as if rueing his southern declension, appears to return along the line of the zodiac. He loves better the "Virgin" than "Aquarius;" and lingering to take a fond look on that fair land he has fertilised by his beams, dispels for a time his intruding antagonist, the hoary Boreas. But his last kiss kills: there is too much passion in ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... too, begins to retrogress after the period of maturity. And an early retrogression means a short maturity. In women, the onset of an obesity, and coincidently, of a lazy and dull morale, coincides with this declension of the pituitary powers. All the glands of internal secretion, in fact, shrink and shrivel as old age advances. Only, as in other relationships, the predominating endocrine stamps its signature more visibly upon the documents of decadence than the others. Pituitary types, as said, get fat and ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... Rome. Many a day have I been kept in school without my dinner because I was not able to parse thee idly by, Roma—Rome—noun of the first declension, feminine gender, that a quarter of a century ago caused me punishment, I have thee now literally under foot, and (knocking his cigar) ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... way for their complete disappearance. The declensions of nouns became unsettled; nouns that used to make their plural in a or in u took the more striking plural suffix as that belonged to a quite different declension. The same things happened to adjectives, verbs, and other parts of language. The causes of this are not far to seek. Spoken language can never be so accurate as written language; the mass of the English and Danes never cared ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn

... will be generally granted that the history of the world does not furnish a single instance of any religious institution which has stood fifty years without a visible declension of the principles of the institution, in the general purity and integrity of its members. This has been generally acknowledged by the devotees of such institutions and facts have fully verified it. But we would appeal to the candid judgment of those who have known this institution from the beginning, ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... have already said, some intimations of that speedy decay to which the whole civilised world, then limited within the Roman empire, was internally and imperceptibly tending. Nor was it many ages ere these prognostications of declension ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... had known what it was to be resigned, what it was to break forth in a childish fury of rebellion against fate, and what it was to sink into the coma of despair. The time had changed him. He told himself no longer tales of an easy and perhaps agreeable declension; he read his nature otherwise; he had proved himself incapable of rising, and he now learned by experience that he could not stoop to fall. Something that was scarcely pride or strength, that was perhaps only refinement, withheld him from capitulation; ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... been averted by it, a superficial acquaintance with history may inform us. And we are now called upon by the universal cry of the nation, and urged by the perplexed and uncertain state of our foreign affairs, and declension of our wealth, and attacks upon our liberties at home, to recollect these precedents of magnanimity and justice, and to make another effort for the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson

... unto God." Also, whenever you are under any particular temptation or affliction; whenever you are going to engage in anything which will expose you to temptation; whenever you perceive any signs of declension in your own soul; when the state of religion around you is low; when your heart is affected with the condition of individuals who are living in impenitence; or when any subject lies heavily upon your mind;—make the matter, ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb

... betroth'd To Bona, sister to the King of France. These both put off, a poor petitioner, A care-craz'd mother to a many sons, A beauty-waning and distressed widow, Even in the afternoon of her best days, Made prize and purchase of his wanton eye, Seduc'd the pitch and height of his degree To base declension and loath'd bigamy: By her, in his unlawful bed, he got This Edward, whom our manners call the prince. More bitterly could I expostulate, Save that, for reverence to some alive, I give a sparing limit to my tongue. ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... pains to set out those of his party, and had been at the trouble of procuring voices for them, the case was altered: he was concerned for his own labour, and that so earnestly that disputes and quarrels, animosities, commotions, and bloodshed often happened; and in the declension of the Grecian empire, the very sovereigns themselves engaged in it, even when the barbarians were at their doors, and stickled for the preference of colours when the safety of their people was in question. I am now myself on the brink of the same precipice; I have spent ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden

... know that poem of Longfellow's, sir, that sounds exactly like the first declension. What is it?—'Marr's a ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... would otherwise induce us to do. We therefore refer the student to that clever little book, the Eton Latin Grammar, strongly recommending him to decline the following substantives, by way of an exercise, after the manner of the examples there set down. First declension, Genitivo ae. Virga, a rod. —Second, i. Puer, a boy. Stultus, a fool. Tergum, a back. —Third, is. Vulpes, a fox. Procurator, an attorney. Cliens, a client. —Fourth, us— here you may have, Risus, a laugh ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh

... as an ending. Who can quit young lives after being long in company with them, and not desire to know what befell them in their after-years? For the fragment of a life, however typical, is not the sample of an even web: promises may not be kept, and an ardent outset may be followed by declension; latent powers may find their long-waited opportunity; a past error may urge a ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... time. He took up the key-note first struck by Manius Curius, his ideal among Roman statesmen;(50) throughout his long life he made it his task honestly, to the best of his judgment, to assail on all hands the prevailing declension; and even in his eighty-fifth year he battled in the Forum with the new spirit of the times. He was anything but comely—he had green eyes, his enemies alleged, and red hair—and he was not a great man, still ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... upon the mind of Mr. Farquhar, who saw nothing but beggary and want before him, that by a sure, tho' not sudden declension of nature, it carried him off this worldly theatre, while his last play was acting in the height of success at that of Drury-lane; and tho' the audience bestowed the loudest applauses upon the performance, yet they could scarce forbear mingling tears with their mirth for ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber

... had meant to happen. It was an inglorious declension from her contemplated pose of dignified assertion. She was impelled to do her utmost to get away from this lie she had uttered at once, to eliminate Agatha from the argument by an emphatic generalization. "I've a perfect right," she said, suddenly nearly breathless, ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... disaster, and it was with a sentiment of relief, commensurate with the contempt inspired by such an explanation, that I was given to understand that it was the great author's unselfish effort in behalf of his old college comrade and life-long friend, that was supposed to imply a state of moral declension fitly indicated ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various

... in this way, uttering even worse nonsense than I have set down, and mingling with it soiled and dusty commonplaces of religion, every now and then dwelling for a moment or two upon his own mental and physical declension from the admirable being he once was. He reached the height of his absurdity in describing the resistance of the two pilgrims to the manifold temptations of Vanity Fair, which he so set forth as to take from Christian and Faithful the smallest ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... the treasury for the erection of churches and support of the clergy perplexed the executive. The ordinary revenue showed symptoms of declension, and the council passed a bill which declared that new imposts were impracticable, and vested a discretionary power in the government to refuse assistance to any new undertaking (1841). Thus the principle of the church act was subverted, and the grant ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... thereabouts—I think you will agree with me, that it constitutes one of the most remarkable epochs in the whole of that thousand years which we may roughly reckon as constituting the history of Britain. In the commencement of that period, we may see, if not the setting, at any rate the declension of that system of personal rule which had existed under previous sovereigns, and which, after a brief and spasmodic revival in the time of George the Third, has now sunk, let us hope, into the limbo of forgotten things. The latter part of ...
— William Harvey And The Discovery Of The Circulation Of The Blood • Thomas H. Huxley

... this second reason I now am, and am shewing how it comes to pass that they that are under the power of the things that we have afore discoursed, should notwithstanding that, return to their vomit again. One cause of this declension, or going back to iniquity, I have just now touched upon, and we have some ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... setting her feet thereon uncompromisingly. And the earth on which they were thus set was, it must be owned, rather ugly. A woman made of weaker stuff would have cried out against such sudden and painful declension. But Katherine, happily both for herself and for those about her, waking even from dreams of noble and far-reaching attainment, waked with not only her wits, but her heart, in steady action. Yet she ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... why we Christians represent John the Baptist, who had nothing to do with a cross, as holding a cross; if it be not that while Jesus was supposed to represent the Sun in its annual ascension, John was supposed to represent the Sun in its annual declension? What other rational explanation have we of the facts, (1) that John is represented as saying that he baptised with water but that Jesus would baptise with fire (where the rains of winter and the heat of ...
— The Non-Christian Cross - An Enquiry Into the Origin and History of the Symbol Eventually Adopted as That of Our Religion • John Denham Parsons

... wood of ancient oak of which I have spoken. Beyond it, on the northern side, the further edge of this ravine rose steeply, masses of scarred limestone jutting out of its escarpments; it seemed to me that at the foot of the wood and in the deepest part of this natural declension, there would be a burn, a stream, that ran downwards from the moor to the sea. I think we had some idea of getting down to this, following its course to its outlet on the beach, and returning homeward by ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... caprice of approbation. When I had singled out one from the rest as more worthy of encouragement, I proceeded in my measures by the rules of art; and yet when the ardour of the first visits was spent, generally found a sudden declension of my influence; I felt in myself the want of some power to diversify amusement, and enliven conversation, and could not but suspect that my mind failed in performing the promises of my face. This opinion was soon confirmed by one of my lovers, who married Lavinia with less beauty ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... just, and if your country rejects them she will not long hold the rank of the first nation in Europe. Her declension is begun, her ruin approaches; for, omitting all other arguments, can a state be well served when the raising of an opulent fortune in its service, and making a splendid use of that fortune, is a distinction more envied than any ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton

... Dhaumya, that foremost of all virtuous men, addressed Yudhishthira, in these words, 'In days of old, all living beings that had been created were sorely afflicted with hunger. And like a father (unto all of them), Savita (the sun) took compassion upon them. And going first into the northern declension, the sun drew up water by his rays, and coming back to the southern declension, stayed over the earth, with his heat centered in himself. And while the sun so stayed over the earth, the lord of the vegetable world (the moon), converting the effects of the solar heat (vapours) into ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... dances, and every circumstance of rejoicing.[1165] Wild orgies followed, and Aphaca became notorious for scenes to which it will be necessary to recur hereafter. The Adonis myth is generally explained as representing either the perpetually recurrent decay and recovery of nature, or the declension of the Sun as he moves from the summer to the winter constellations, and his subsequent return and reappearance in all his strength. But myths obtained a powerful hold on ancient imaginations, and the worshippers of Adonis probably in most cases forgot the symbolical ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... art as a learned profession were a gradual but continual accumulation of individual excellence, instead of being a sudden and almost miraculous start to the highest beauty and grandeur nearly at first, and a regular declension to mediocrity ever after, then indeed the distinction between genius and imitation would be little worth contending for; the causes might be different, the effects would be the same, or rather skill to avail ourselves of external advantages would be of more importance and efficacy than the most ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... instructions, and the moment the shadow reached its highest angle, and showed the minutest symptom of declension, she said, "Now," and Hazel called out ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade

... there have been too many Raynerites and Adamites and sadly too few Christians in it; pious snarling and godly backbiting have been too industriously exercised; and one consequence has been weakened power and a declension of progress. But the brethren are getting more cheerful, much old spleen has subsided, and, we hope, they will all kiss and get kind ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus

... for pronouncing AE like AI, that in the poets we occasionally find AI in the genitive singular of the first declension, appears to have little weight in ...
— The Roman Pronunciation of Latin • Frances E. Lord

... Society of Friends. He inquired if J.G. Whittier was a "Friend" in regular standing, evidently intimating a doubt on that point, on account of his being so decided an abolitionist. The praise of such men is the strongest testimony that could be adduced to the declension of the Society of Friends in anti-slavery zeal. To a great extent I fear their sentiments on this subject have been held traditionally; and that in many cases, they have not only done nothing themselves, but by example and ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge

... though the trees were mostly of small girth, threw a heavy shadow, so that the steep declension, in front of which grew the tree behind which the African lurked, was almost in darkness. Adam drew as close as he could, and was amazed to see a patch of light on the ground before him; when he realised what it was, he was ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker

... covenants and departures from God, are no less evident discoveries, undeniable signs and pregnant convictions of the Lord's most just displeasure and indignation with the bypast and present courses of revolting and backsliding from him; which courses of declension and grievous apostatizing from God and his covenant, all the three kingdoms and in special this nation, and every individual therein capable of such a work, are, without all controversy, called to bewail and confess before God, and by speedy amendment to turn from them, in order to avert ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery

... Paul, Peter and John. They are noticed also by Jude. The two former suffered martyrdom under Nero. When the time of their departure drew nigh, they had separately a view of the then future state of the church; "particularly of the declension which were to take place in the kingdoms of this world, shall become the kingdom of our Lord and Christ." St. John had the same opened to his view in the ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee

... every language has a time of rudeness antecedent to perfection, as well as of false refinement and declension, I have been cautious lest my zeal for antiquity might drive me into times too remote, and crowd my book with words now no longer understood. I have fixed Sidney's work for the boundary, beyond which ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... he was asleep again in five minutes. This time she wakened before him, to look into a wonderful sea of gold that filled the crotches of the hills between the purple teeth. No sun was to be seen— it had sunk behind the peaks— but the trail of its declension was marked by that great pool of glory into ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine

... policy in itself, but whatever else might be said, it was in direct antagonism to the principle elaborately expounded by him only six years before, as the sacred rule and obligation between a Christian state and Christian churches. He had marked any departure from that rule as a sign of social declension, as a descent from a higher state of society to a lower, as a note in the ebb and flow of national life. Was it not inevitable, then, that his official participation in the extension of the public endowment of Maynooth would henceforth give to every one the ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... appendix to the dictionary. The grammatical formulae may then, by gentle degrees, be committed to memory, and when once got by heart, should be assiduously preserved in the recollection. After the preparation which we have recommended, the singular number of a declension will be learnt in a few minutes by a child of ordinary capacity, and after two or three days repetition, the plural number may be added. The whole of the first declension should be well fixed in the memory before a second is attempted. During this process, a few words at every lesson ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth

... The first step in spiritual declension is this: "Let him that thinketh he standeth!" The secret of real strength is this: "Kept ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff

... authors interested him more than their English contemporaries. In the former case he found, perhaps, less declension from the standard of the giants of whom he had been an eager student in his early manhood, when he read "all Balzac," and recorded his admiration for the "dignity" of Mme. de Stael's Germany. Dumas he loved then and always, returning to him with ever new delight, and utilizing ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... that these apparently opposing qualities are only divided from each other by almost insensible boundaries. The habitual exercise of strong self-control can alone preserve even our virtues from degenerating into sin, and a clear-sightedness as to the very first step of declension must be sought for by self-denial on our own part, and by earnest prayer for the assisting graces of the Holy Spirit, to search the depths of our heart, and ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady

... de Maupassant being tinged with eroticism, his work is sure to be read with interest by mankind; but he is already classed. Nobody, now, despite all his brilliant excellences, would dream of putting de Maupassant with the first magnitudes. And the declension of Flaubert is one of the outstanding phenomena of modern French criticism. It is being discovered that Flaubert's mind was not quite noble enough—that, indeed, it was a cruel mind, and a little anaemic. ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett

... height. The first coup d'archet was made with the shirt-collar, which he folded down to its proper size; but the delicate part of the performance was still to come. Brummell "standing before the glass, with his chin raised towards the ceiling, now, by the gentle and gradual declension of his lower jaw, creased the cravat to reasonable dimensions; the form of each succeeding crease being perfected with the shirt which he had just discarded." We were not aware of the nicety which was demanded to complete the folds of this superior swathing; but, after ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various

... describes the changes which followed the declension of the primitive church from its original ...
— On Singing and Music • Society of Friends

... on the present fatal Declension of the general Commerce of England, J. Huggenson, ...
— The Annual Catalogue: Numb. II. (1738) • Various

... That first declension has been a valley of humiliation to many a sturdy boy—to many a bright one, too; and often it is, that the more full of thought and vigor the mind is, the more difficult it is to narrow it down to the single dry issue of learning those sounds. Heinrich Heine ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... things to be accomplished that must be done, regardless of our success in securing free attention. It is entirely conceivable that some boy or girl may not want to learn his multiplication tables, or his words in spelling, or his conjugation or declension in French, and that all that the teacher has done may fail to arouse any great amount of interest or enthusiasm for the work in question. In these cases, and in many others which might be cited, the necessity for the particular habit may be so great as to demand that every pupil do the work ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy

... have gaz'd on thee for ever; —But oh! my Eyes grow heavy in the Play, As if some strange Divinity about me Told me my Safety lay in their Declension. —It is not Sleep!—sure, Kings do never sleep; That were a low submission to a Power A Monarch shou'd despise—but yet 'tis so: Ye Gods, am I but mortal then? Or do you ever sleep? I find ye do! But I must—and lose this lovely ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn

... Although declension and conjugation are as yet absolutely lacking, a transition has become established from the worst form of dysgrammatism to the beginning of correct diction by means of the more frequent use of the plural in nouns (Rad, Raeder), the more frequent employment of ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer

... noun," said I, "which I propose for your declension this night, is Dyer, which signifieth Lord, ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow

... examples will give a sufficient idea of the commoner forms of declension in the classical West Saxon of the time of AElfred. The pronunciation has already been briefly ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen

... Parts of Speech Examples for Parsing, Praxis I Chapter II. Of the Articles Observations on the Articles Examples for Parsing, Praxis II Errors concerning Articles Chapter III. Of Nouns Classes of Nouns Modifications of Nouns Persons Numbers Genders Cases The Declension of Nouns Examples for Parsing, Praxis III Errors concerning Nouns Chapter IV. Of Adjectives Classes of Adjectives Modifications of Adjectives Regular Comparison Comparison by Adverbs Irregular Comparison ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... least considerable. After the discovery and conquest of the West Indies, gold and silver became every day more plentiful in England, as well as in the rest of Europe; and the price of all commodities and provisions rose to a height beyond what had been known since the declension of the Roman empire. As the revenue of the crown rose not in proportion,[*] the prince was insensibly reduced to poverty amidst the general riches of his subjects, and required additional funds in order to support the same magnificence ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... handsome, but there was that in it, which, in the frame of mind I was in, attached me much more to it,—it was interesting: I fancied it wore the characters of a widow'd look, and in that state of its declension, which had passed the two first paroxysms of sorrow, and was quietly beginning to reconcile itself to its loss;—but a thousand other distresses might have traced the same lines; I wish'd to know what they had been—and was ready to inquire, (had the same bon ton of conversation permitted, ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne

... proceed with the experiment, let us see that we have got the fishes. That tench was in the Gyndis we have no authority for denying; but, if its Anglian or Saxon name was such as the dictionary exhibits, we have no trace of it {400} in the text of Alfred; for under no form of declension, acknowledged in grammar, will tynce ever give tyncenum. We have no need, then, to spend time in calculating the chance of success, when we have not the means of making ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 182, April 23, 1853 • Various

... sadness, then into a fast, Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness, Thence to a lightness; and, by this declension, Into the ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin

... time have never seen them. The vilest inclinations, the basest actions, succeeded my amiable amusements and even obliterated the very remembrance of them. I must have had, in spite of my good education, a great propensity to degenerate, else the declension could not have followed with such ease and rapidity, for never did so promising a Caesar ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... in that particular manifestation was now extinct, and therefore, pro tanto, rather presumtions of weakness than of strength as being mementoes of our losses, yet, on the other hand, all countervailing claims which had since arisen, and had far more than equiponderated the declension in that one direction, should have been then adopted into the titular heraldry of the nation. It was neither wise nor just to insult foreign nations with assumptions which no longer stood upon any basis of reality. And on that ground France was, perhaps, rightly omitted. But why, when ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... Never let your boys get too forward; the longer they stay, the longer they pay. I have known a dozen boys of six years standing in an academy, who neither knew the declension or conjugations of their accidence, their multiplication or pence table, or any thing else besides, which they had been sent to learn, and for the learning of which, some of them to my certain knowledge had paid upwards of three hundred pounds. What then? ...
— The Academy Keeper • Anonymous

... of the Churches and Societies under their pastoral care, on the subject of the increasing negligence of the Publick Worship of God; which they consider as one of the most painful and alarming, among the various instances of declension and immorality, which at the present time threaten the very existence of religion in this country.—"In what manner," says the Address, "does this evil affect the political interests, the essential wellbeing, of the community? All the branches of morality are indissolubly connected. From one breach ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 3: New-England Sunday - Gleanings Chiefly From Old Newspapers Of Boston And Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks

... are, it must be admitted, intricate. Each noun boasts two separate forms, and each of its declension-cases keeps a group of sub-cases within reach for special emergencies. There are only two regularly ordained verbs,—"to be" and "to have"; but they don different canonicals for each different ceremony, ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... of 1596 as to be 'markitt for a special perriodic and fatall yeir to the Kirk of Scotland,' and he enters on his narrative of it 'with a sorrowful heart and drouping eyes,' so 'doolful' was the decay it ushered in. The declension is not to be wondered at; for where has a Church been found in which such prolonged oppression as the Scottish Church had been subjected to, did not weary the patience and damp the zeal of all but the most resolved members of its Communion? ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison

... And Mr Censor returns to the subject on March 3: "More Murders and horrid Barbarities have been committed within the last twelvemonth, than during many preceding years. This as we have before observed, is principally to be attributed to the Declension of Religion among the Common People." By the end of the month the above-named Act had received the royal assent; and the first clause thereof again yielded Fielding the satisfaction of seeing a measure which he ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden

... cold or hungry or exhausted, his nerve is at low ebb; if life is running strong in his arteries his grit is above par. For years Roush had been drinking to excess. He had reached the point where he dared not face in the open a man like Albeen with nerves of unflawed steel. The declension of a gunman, if once it begins, is rapid and sure. One of those days, unless Roush were killed first, some mild-looking citizen would take his gun from him and kick ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine

... the bookbinder's English was rather scanty at the best, and was not literary. As for the grammar, I was getting that up as fast as I could from Ollendorff, and from other sources, but I was enjoying Heine before I well knew a declension or a conjugation. As soon as my task was done at the office, I went home to the books, and worked away at them until supper. Then my bookbinder and I met in my father's editorial room, and with a couple of candles on the table between us, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... is Declension? Decline girl and tooth. Decline the several personal pronouns, the relative and the interrogative. What adjective pronouns are declined ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg

... context will rarely show the true specific sense, but only that something of the sort is designed. A perusal of the authorities cited by Johnson in his dictionary under any leading word, will give you a lively sense of this declension in etymological truth of expression in the writers after the Restoration, or perhaps, strictly, after the middle of ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge

... Divine Truth set in. The Deity of Christ denied, the Virgin Birth, His atoning death, His physical resurrection, everything denied; the Bible as the revelation of God rejected; and with these denials there came the increase of unrighteousness and moral declension, till the age produced the condition which the Word of God clearly foresaw, a great professing church, with the harlot character, unfaithful to Christ and to His Word; while of course it is equally true that there is the true Church, which remains true to Christ ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein

... Murray, Aug. 5, 1817 (Memoir, etc., i. 386), "Polidori has sent me his tragedy! Do me the kindness to send by return of post a delicate declension of it, which I engage faithfully ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron

... say somewhat to me of this argument; that I may really know how far I may comply with passion and provocation; and whether as no infirmity or impiety in my prince can warrant or excuse my declension of allegiance towards him, there be not some candour and kindness to remain towards a man's country, though infected with the ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle

... little else to be heard but the declension of nouns, the conjugation of verbs, etc. When walking together, and even at meals, I was constantly telling him the names of different objects, as they presented themselves, in French; so that he was hourly laying in a stock of words, and ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

... noises unconcerned, and when you see me dying, do not call my soul to mingle with thy sighs; yet shouldst thou abate one word, one look or tear, by heaven I should be mad; oh, never let me live to see declension in thy love! No, no, my charmer, I cannot bear the least supposed decay in those dear fondnesses of thine; and sure none ever became a maid so well, nor ever were received with adorations, like ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn

... excursion. If such was the fact, it required considerable time to send a messenger the necessary distance, and to bring the two white men to the spot where they were to embark. Encouraged by these reflections, a new stock of patience was gathered, and the declension of the sun was viewed ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... But this emergence of the clause into prominence was a flash in the pan. During the last decade hardly a case a term involving the clause has reached the Court, counting even those in which it is treated as a tail to the due process of law kite.[1736] The reason for this declension has been twofold: first, the subordination of public grants to the police power; secondly, the expansion of the due process clause, which has largely rendered it a fifth wheel ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... in Philip's declension happened in this way. Sylvia had made rapid progress in her recovery; but now she seemed at a stationary point of weakness; wakeful nights succeeding to languid days. Occasionally she caught a little sleep in the afternoons, but she usually awoke ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell

... declension of the Roman empire—which is not to be found in all Gibbon's immense work—may be stated in two words:—the imperial character overlaying, and finally destroying, the national character. Rome under Trajan was ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... the history of literature. In the novel we must admit that the creative faculty has taken a lower form than it held in the epic and the tragedy. But since in this form it acts on more extensive material and reaches more men, we may well believe that this temporary declension is preparatory to some higher development, when the poet shall idealise life without making abstraction of any of its elements, and when the secret of existence, which he now speaks to the inward ear of a few, may be proclaimed ...
— An Estimate of the Value and Influence of Works of Fiction in Modern Times • Thomas Hill Green

... to know, by what methods those empires were founded; by what steps they rose to that exalted pitch of grandeur which we so much admire; what it was that constituted their true glory and felicity; and what were the causes of their declension and fall. ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... abundantly afforded by memoirs of the sons of literature. They are entangled by contracts which they know not how to fulfil, and obliged to write on subjects which they do not understand. Every publication is a new period of time, from which some increase or declension of fame is to be reckoned. The gradations of a hero's life are from battle to battle, and of an author's ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... generous country, but in our austere and thrifty Glen there was only one high day, and that was Sacrament Sabbath. It is rumoured—but one prefers not to believe scandals—that the Scottish Kirk nowadays is encouraging a monthly Sacrament, after which nothing remains in the way of historical declension except for people to remain for the Sacrament as it may occur to them, and for men like Drumsheugh to get up at meetings to give their religious experiences, when every one that has any understanding will know that the reserve has gone out of Scottish character, ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren

... which, though the general can hardly repeat them for laughing, always make Mr. Bracebridge look grave, he having a great antipathy to an indecent jest. In a word, the general is a complete instance of the declension in gay life, by which a young man of pleasure is apt to cool down into an obscene ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... a vast area of depressed interior, subjected in seasons of prolonged rains to partial inundation, by a dispersion of the several waters that flow upon it from the eastern mountains whence they originate; and bearing in mind at the same time, that the declension of the country within the above parallels, as most decidedly shown by the dip of its several rivers, is uniformly to the N.N.W. and N.W., it would appear very conclusive, that either a portion of our distant interior ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt

... years later, in a day of great spiritual darkness, Whitefield and the Wesleys appeared as light-bearers for God. Under the rule of the established church, the people of England had lapsed into a state of religious declension hardly to be distinguished from heathenism. Natural religion was the favorite study of the clergy, and included most of their theology. The higher classes sneered at piety, and prided themselves on being above what they called its fanaticism. The lower classes were grossly ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White



Words linked to "Declension" :   declivity, deterioration, fall, downhill, falling off, family, inflection, decline, worsening, inflexion, decline in quality, descent, steep



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