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Decreasing   Listen
adjective
Decreasing  adj.  Becoming less and less; diminishing.
Decreasing series (Math.), a series in which each term is numerically smaller than the preceding term.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Decreasing" Quotes from Famous Books



... that simple. I doubt if you realize it, but they have a decreasing population. It is just a matter of years before they will be gone. Whereas your people at least must have a stable—if not slightly growing population—to have existed without their mechanical protections. So in the city they hate you and are jealous of you at the ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison

... had a population in 1901 of 4137. The district has an area of 3662 sq. m. The southern part forms a portion of Berar Balaghat or Berar—above the Ghats. Here the general contour of the country may be described as a succession of small plateaus decreasing in elevation to the extreme south. Towards the eastern side of the district the country assumes more the character of undulating high lands, favoured with soil of a good quality. A succession of plateaus descends from ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... have kept within the bounds of the practicable. To satisfy the Professor, you can theorize in something after this fashion: If we double the number of cars, thus decreasing by one half the distance which each has to go, we shall attain twice the speed. Each of the sixteen cars will have but one eighth of a mile to go. At the uniform rate we have adopted, the two miles can be ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various

... grave question—when we remember that the rapidly increasing business of the world, consequent upon an increasing population, and a civilization advancing with giant steps, is measured by the standard of a currency limited by natural laws, decreasing annually in production, and incapable of expanding proportionately to the growth of the world—whether this Atlantean superstition may not yet inflict more incalculable injuries on mankind than those which resulted from the practice ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly

... to be explored both areally and vertically, this pessimism does not seem to be wholly justified from the geologic standpoint. Curves representing the world's gold production in past years show periods of increasing annual production as new fields are discovered, followed by periods of decreasing production when no new ore bodies are coming in to replace dwindling reserves. It is entirely possible that in recent years the gold-mining industry has been merely in one of these temporary stagnant periods. There are many regions, both in the vicinity of worked-out lodes and in unsettled and ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith

... charter of 1662 if Connecticut had been less aggressive in her attitude. As it was, the controversy became pungent and was prolonged for more than two years, though the outcome was never uncertain. The New Haven colony was poor, unprotected, and divided against itself. Its population was decreasing; Indian massacres threatened its frontiers; the malcontents of Guilford, led by Bray Rossiter, were demanding immediate and unconditional surrender to Connecticut; and finally in 1664 the successful capture of New Netherland and the grant to the Duke of ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews

... the sin of the world!" A few faithful Galileans followed and believed, and miracles began to testify that here was indeed the Christ, the Prophet like to Moses, giving bread to the hungry, eyes to the blind, feet to the lame. Decreasing as He increased, John offended Herod Antipas by "boldly rebuking vice." This Antipas had forsaken his own wife, the daughter of an Arabian king, and had taken in her stead, his niece Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip; and for bearing witness against this ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... were satisfactory. Yet it was even more probable that they had been selected for this special service because of lack of ordinary scruples; men who would never question so long as the pay was adequate for the danger involved. It seemed to West the wind and sea were slowly decreasing in violence; there was less noise and turmoil. The movement of the vessel began to lull him into forgetfulness, his vigilance relapsed, his mind drifting in thought. He endeavoured to arouse himself, to keep awake, ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish

... his squad may drop into line at one place and he may move to the next squad on the right or left where there is a squad leader needed. If there are no vacancies caused by disabled squad leaders, he drops into line and assists the squad leaders who are there. 14. Prevents decreasing rate of fire when men are transmitting data to arriving supports. 15. Prevents wasting of ammunition. 16. Prevents use of 30 rounds in right pocket section of belts except on order of an officer. 17. Distributes ammunition of dead and wounded and ammunition ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker

... victories in Italy, though he was victor in many small conflicts. The Romans had paid dearly for their impatience. Fabius was again called to the head of the army, and his old policy was restored. And thus years went on, Hannibal's army gradually decreasing and receiving few reinforcements from home, while Rome in time regained ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... be 34 deg. 59' south and 138 deg. 42' east. No land was visible so far to the north as where the trees appeared above the horizon, which showed the coast to be very low, and our soundings were fast decreasing. From noon to six o'clock we ran thirty miles to the northward, skirting a sandy shore at the distance of five, and thence to eight miles; the depth was then 5 fathoms, and we dropped the anchor upon a bottom of sand, mixed ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders

... many days prospecting along the shores of Glen Canyon. After forty-three days of waiting at Lee's Ferry, Russell and Monett decided that if they were to complete the trip before their now rapidly decreasing supply of provisions was exhausted, they must start on without Loper, for whom they had waited more than twice the time agreed on. Friday, December 13, had no terrors for the intrepid pair, and on the morning of that day they started on ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James

... Proportion of Energy? 11. Improved Quality of Consumption the Condition of Social Progress. 12. The Highest Division of Labour between Machinery and Art. 13. Qualitative Consumption defeats the Law of Decreasing Returns. 14. Freedom of Art from Limitations of Matter. 15. Machinery and Art in production of Intellectual Wealth. 16. Reformed Consumption abolishes Anti-Social Competition. 17. Life itself must become Qualitative. 18. Organic ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson

... done. At last I was fully satisfied that it was not from impulse, nor under excitement, that she had given the money. I next stated to her something like this: "You are poor, and you are about sixty years old, therefore decreasing in strength, and may you not therefore keep this money for yourself?" Her reply was, as nearly as I remember, something like this: "God has always provided for me, and I have no doubt he will do so in future also. I am able to work and to earn my bread as well as others, and ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller

... foremost, so that they could cross and re-cross without being turned around. These boats were given engines of sufficient power to enable them to overcome the force of strong ebb tides; and in order to facilitate their landing, Fulton contrived a species of floating dock, and a means of decreasing the shock caused by the striking of the boat against the dock. These boats could accommodate eight four-wheel carriages, twenty-nine horses, and four hundred passengers. Their average time across the North River, a mile and a half ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... those in the larger. In the following figure, suppose X be assumed as the line of units, the lines to the right will be integers decimally increasing, and those to the left fractional parts decimally decreasing; and the Swan-pan in the present position of the balls, will represent ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... keep up an exchange of goods with the villages. If we can supply the villages with manufactured goods, they will supply us with food. You can fairly say that our ruin or salvation depends on a race between the decreasing value of money (with the consequent need for printing notes in ever greater quantities) and our growing ability to do without money altogether. That is of course, a broad view, and you must not for ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome

... backs, the elder ones tottered by their sides, and a poor starved horse tugged at a cart that bore their scanty effects. The cold wind whistled, and therefore the little girl nestled closer to the mother, who, looking up at my decreasing disc, thought of the bitter want at home, and spoke of the heavy taxes they had not been able to raise. The whole caravan thought of the same thing; therefore, the rising dawn seemed to them a ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... home was almost as trying as their detention in the ice. Scarcely a drop of water remained, their stock of provisions was well nigh exhausted, every particle of fuel had been consumed, while their numbers were daily diminishing, their strength decreasing, and the water gaining on the pumps. Still they struggled, like brave men, ...
— Archibald Hughson - An Arctic Story • W.H.G. Kingston

... order to change place or shape, to form a square or a column, or some other parade-ground figure, by the movement of the soldiers who are drilling; or again to fashion a statue by removing a few pieces from a block of marble; or to make some figure in relief, by changing, decreasing or increasing a piece of wax? The production of modifications has never been called creation, and it is an abuse of terms to scare the world thus. God produces substances from nothing, and the substances produce accidents by ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz

... test—the direct and immediate effect upon productive efficiency—is not a satisfactory one. Moreover, many changes in the methods or organization of business are designed primarily to alter distribution in the interest of the capitalist by decreasing wages or by raising prices. In so far as a policy of non-interference permits changes of this sort, it is clearly harmful to the community at large, though advantageous ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith

... was the first stage of their flight; for it commanded the only outlet from the valley, except a rugged path among the hills, utterly impassable by horse. In this dilemma, expresses were sent by each of the different roads; and poor Ellen's imprudence—the tale nowise decreasing as it rolled along—became known to a wide extent of country. Having thus done everything in his power to recover his daughter, the merchant exhibited a composure which Dr. Melmoth admired, but could not equal. His own mind, however, was in a far ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... present it has two families, numbering altogether forty-eight persons; of these twelve are children and youth under twenty-one—eight girls and four boys. Of the adults, six are men and thirty women. Until a year ago there were three families, but decreasing numbers led them to call in one; and they now let the buildings formerly used by that one. Thirty-five years ago this society numbered one hundred and fifty persons; twenty-four years ago, seventy-five; twenty years ago it had ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff

... comparatively large number of their people by death, in consequence of the change of climate, which is greatly to be deplored; but their sanitary condition is now very much improved. The death rate among them during the present year has been very low, and the number of cases of sickness is constantly decreasing. It is thought that they are now sufficiently acclimated ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson

... utmost difficulty that Doctor Churchill kept the road. Only the fact that the storm was showing signs of decreasing, and that now and then came moments when he could see more clearly the outlying indications of fence and tree and infrequent habitation assured him that he had not ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond

... exhibition for that class, they are read only in the Junior year. The following may do as specimens of the subjects usually assigned:—The difference between alluvial and original soils; a discussion between two persons not noted for personal cleanliness. The last term of a decreasing series; a subject for an insignificant but conceited fellow. An essay on the Humbug, by a dabbler in natural history. A conference on the three dimensions, length, breadth, and thickness, between three persons, one very tall, another very broad, and ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... foreigners carries off 1,500,000l. of that balance. France is not in the same condition. Then follow his wailings and lamentings, which he renews over and over, according to his custom—a declining trade, and decreasing specie—on the point of becoming tributary to France—of losing Ireland—of having the colonies ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... all these dangers today is disregard and disobedience of law. Crime is increasing. Confidence in rigid and speedy justice is decreasing. I am not prepared to believe that this indicates any decay in the moral fiber of the American people. I am not prepared to believe that it indicates an impotence of the Federal Government ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

... system just as the workers are, but it is a system which makes their interests diametrically opposed to the interests of their employees. The only way the capitalists can increase their relative share of the product of their employees' labor is by decreasing the ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte

... was half-way up a telegraph pole to help me cut in on a live wire. Fast as I could, I rigged a pony, and began calling the McCloud despatcher. It was rocky sending, but after no end of pounding, I got him and gave orders for the wrecking gang, and for one more of Neighbor's rapidly decreasing supply ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various

... opinion respecting the formation of ice had formerly coincided with that of the theorists we are now controverting, found abundant reason, in the present voyage, for changing his sentiments. We found the coast of each continent to be low, the soundings gradually decreasing toward them, and a striking resemblance between the two; which, together with the description Mr Hearne gives of the copper-mine river, afford reason to conjecture, that whatever rivers may empty themselves into the Frozen Sea, from the American continent, are of the same nature with those on the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... the first paragraph of the Report of the Committee, "a poor country practically without manufactures—except for the linen and shipbuilding of the north, and the brewing and distilling of Dublin—dependent upon agriculture, with its soil imperfectly tilled, its area under cultivation decreasing, and a diminishing population without industrial habits or ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... with more or less success; but, as a rule, the relation of employer and employed does not accord well with the relation of pastor and people. The difficulty continues, and will no doubt continue, but it is decreasing every year. When travelling down through Northern India in 1877 we found Christians in every place at which we stopped, and we learned they were supporting themselves in various modes, in printing offices, bookbinding establishments, railways, and public offices. A ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy

... was still invisible. In fact, no stars or planets were visible; only the gleaming Sun with the Earth-spot upon it. Our thermometer was poorly placed in the glare of the Sun at the rear; but it showed the heat was decreasing, and from a temperature of thirty-five degrees, observed at the end of the second day, it had now fallen to twelve, and was diminishing regularly about two degrees daily as nearly as we ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass

... manufacturing or railroads), brakemen, conductors, plumbers, common laborers (under transportation), locomotive engineers, motormen, policemen, soldiers, sailors, and marines. The interesting point is that in only one division of work are women decreasing in proportion to men—and that was women's work at the beginning—manufacturing. In agriculture, in the professions, in domestic and personal service, in trade and transportation, the number of women is creeping up, up, in ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker

... day came, and the sun, looking through the white-curtained valley, saw the outcasts divide their slowly decreasing store of provisions for the morning meal. It was one of the peculiarities of that mountain climate that its rays diffused a kindly warmth over the wintry landscape, as if in regretful commiseration of the past. But it revealed drift on drift of snow piled high around the hut,—a ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... losing, while at the first she did not know what she would gain." During these sayings, and others which have most unfortunately been lost, came the six thousand gold crowns, which were worth all three hundred thousand francs of to-day, so much do we go on decreasing in value every day. The king ordered the crowns to be arranged upon a table, and well lighted up, so that they shone like the eyes of the company which lit up involuntarily, and made them laugh in spite ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac

... welcomed and well cared for in Hopiland, and now that the young mothers are learning to discard unripe corn, fruit, and melons as baby food, the infant mortality, once very high, is decreasing. ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett

... furnished the English army and navy with seventy thousand men, over and above those who migrated to their colonies, or mingled with them at home in the civil departments of life. This was a very considerable and seasonable supply to a nation, whose people had been for many years decreasing in number, and whose lands and manufactures were actually suffering for want of hands. I need not remind you of the hackneyed maxim, that, to a nation in such circumstances, a supply of industrious people is a supply of wealth; nor repeat an observation, which is ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... about curving it in the direction of the edifice. To attain this object, it placed a little mass of moist earth on the extremity of the leaf, and fixed it there. Under the influence of this weight flexion was produced, but only at the end. This could not satisfy the insect; it became a question of decreasing the resistance at the base. The ant gnawed a little at this spot; the desired result was attained, and the whole length of the leaf became bent over the building in course of construction. To prevent it bending back, and to ensure its remaining adherent to the roof, the worker returned to the ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay

... supposition was most probably correct—Ryan, indeed, who had sent for his night-glass and brought it to bear upon her, declared that he could detect an increase in the area of her shadowy canvas—for even after we had made sail we could not perceive that we were in any wise decreasing the distance between ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... was decreasing, I could perceive no diminishment in the apparent speed of the sun. It still spread itself in ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson

... had come to see another sort of leisure—the famous leisure of fortune and fashion driving in the Delicias, but perhaps never quite fulfilling the traveler's fond ideal of it. We came many times to the Delicias in hope of it, with decreasing disappointment, indeed, but to the last without entire fruition. For our first visit we could not have had a fitter evening, with its pale sky reddening from a streak of sunset beyond Triana, and we arrived in ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells

... west were not decreasing. Iroquois attacks and Huron reprisals were ever threatening the Jesuit missions, and the last great blow was soon to fall. In the summer of 1648 an Iroquois war-party crept up to the gates of St. Joseph. Most of the warriors ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... counties, are still fairly numerous in the waters here. I hope they will long remain so, for although they certainly do destroy great numbers of fish, yet it must be remembered that in this country our list of wild animals has been gradually decreasing for centuries, and especially wild animals that show sport. The otter, I fear, is going; I hope the sportsmen of Somerset will see that it remains in their county, at all events, when it has become a tradition elsewhere. Otter hounds frequently visit the ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... stood side by side, with the bronzed veterans of Lee's hundred fights. Women sat quiet, the shells of Grant's civilized warfare tearing through their houses and through the hospitals. And fearless for themselves, they worked steadily on, nursing the wounded and the sick; giving from their daily-decreasing store with self-forgetfulness; encouraging the weak by their presence and ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... be told that her low birth-rate is due to the high intellectual attainments of her people, and that the rapidly decreasing birth-rate is due to a rapid increase of her intellectual power ...
— The Fertility of the Unfit • William Allan Chapple

... all its efforts had been directed to securing religious liberty. Then came its philanthropic enterprises, and finally its missionary labors. During the quarter of a century one hundred churches that were weak and struggling, owing to their situation in towns of decreasing population or in cities not congenial to their teachings, had been aided. More than fifty vigorous churches had been planted in the west and south, nearly all of them helped in some way by the Association. There was a renewed call for strong ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke

... fairly treated; for, by insect agency, the several individuals are freely crossed with each other, and the injurious influence of close interbreeding is thus prevented. Had hybrids, when fairly treated, always gone on decreasing in fertility in each successive generation, as Gartner believed to be the case, the fact would have ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... nine-year-old Patty, the eldest child, whose sweet fair face is already rather grave sometimes, and who always wants to run up-stairs to save mamma's legs, which get so tired of an evening. Then there are four other blond heads—two boys and two girls, gradually decreasing in size down to Chubby, who is making a round O of her mouth to receive a bit of papa's 'baton'. Papa's attention was divided between petting Chubby, rebuking the noisy Fred, which he did with a somewhat excessive ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... family was, as I have before mentioned, a great hunter. He always had a plentiful supply of deer, antelope, buffalo and beaver meats on hand, but there came a change. The game migrated to some other locality, where no deadly shot like "Kutesan" (Never Miss) would be around to annihilate their fast decreasing droves. The hunter started out early one morning in hopes of discovering some of the game which had disappeared as suddenly as though the earth had swallowed them. The hunter traveled the whole day, all to no purpose. It was late in the evening ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin

... central spot is seen with rings of various width and color surrounding it. If the lens is a true curve, and the glass beneath it a true plane, these rings of color will be perfectly concentric and arranged in regular decreasing intervals. This apparatus is known as Newton's color glass, because he not only measured the phenomena, but established the laws of the appearances presented. I will now endeavor to explain the general principle by which this phenomenon is utilized in the testing of plane surfaces. Suppose ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various

... Nothing prevented its realization so much as its difference from the New York ideal of a flat, which was inflexibly seven rooms and a bath. One or two rooms might be at the front, the rest crooked and cornered backward through in creasing and then decreasing darkness till they reached a light bedroom or kitchen at the rear. It might be the one or the other, but it was always the seventh room with the bath; or if, as sometimes happened, it was the eighth, it was so after having counted the bath as one; in ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... enormous mass of credit currency on one metal instead of two has added nothing to the value of that metal; a thirty years' war on the other metal was not the cause of its depreciation in terms of gold, and if the conditions were reversed, greatly increasing the demand for silver and decreasing the demand for gold, they would remain in relative values just the same. If those propositions are true, all ...
— If Not Silver, What? • John W. Bookwalter

... at the weight of as many ounces, should in two or three months acquire as many pounds. There are, however, two or three things about which all persons agree in opinion—one of these is: that the breed of Salmon is decreasing every year, and that the great cause of this decrease is the want of protection, and a consequent destruction in the spawning season. The complaint on this head is universal from north to south; from the Shannon to the Tweed, the cry is—"Protect ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett

... edifice had revealed the rising walls of the great temple, the Christian Church, whose roof overarches every land, and in whose courts all men may stand and praise the Lord. So John, in his home in Ephesus, surrounded by flourishing churches in which Jews formed a small and ever-decreasing element, recognised how far the dove with the olive-branch In its mouth flew, and how certainly that nation was only a little fragment of the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... our own yield was decreasing. The last week we had gained only nineteen ounces all told. This might be merely a lean bit of misfortune, or it might mean that we had taken the best from our ten claims. Since the human mind is prone to changes, we inclined to the latter theory. ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... to our having crossed over ten degrees of latitude in the centre of the continent, or from 5 deg. south to 5 deg. north latitude, which is this: There exists a regular gradation of fertility, surprisingly rich on the equator, but decreasing systematically from it; and the reason why this great fertile zone is confined to the equatorial regions, is the same as that which has constituted it the great focus of water or lake supply, whence issue the principal ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... as there were," said Pritchard, "they are rapidly decreasing, and indeed dissenters in general. The cause of their decrease is that a good clergyman has lately come here, who visits the sick and preaches Christ, and in fact does his duty. If all our clergymen were like him there would not be many ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... regard to M. Dantes ran higher than ever, but instead of decreasing as he became more prominent, the mystery surrounding him seemed only to thicken. Nevertheless, the Deputy was the lion of the hour, or rather would have been, had he permitted himself to be lionized, but this he ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg

... a decreasing interest in the Japanese people, Geoffrey was enjoying his stay in Tokyo. He was tired of traveling, and was glad to settle down in the semblance of a ...
— Kimono • John Paris

... Bindon said, was rather a reason for not marrying—a town with few gentry, and a petty unthriving manufacture, needing an enormous amount of energy to work it properly, and getting—Mr. Fuller, with force yearly decreasing under the pressure of a sickly wife, ill-educated, unsatisfactory sons, and unhealthy, aimless daughters. Of late some assistance had been obtained, but only from Mr. Driver, the 'coach' or cramming tutor, who was directing the studies of Frank ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... that the larger an army is, the greater is its need of an ever-swelling number of men of recruitable age to maintain it at its full strength; yet, at the very same time the supply of those very men is automatically decreasing. Nor must it be forgotten that the great demand which has arisen for the supply of munitions, equipment, etc., for the armed forces of this country and of our Allies also, as well as the economic and financial necessity of keeping up the production of manufactured goods, involves ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... number of waves entering the eye or ear in a given interval of time. And this number, it is easy to see, must be increased if the source of light or sound is diminishing its distance, and diminished if it is decreasing it. In the one case, the vibrating body pursues and crowds together the waves emanating from it; in the other, it retreats from them, and so lengthens out the space covered by an identical number. The principle ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... rails 63 by 100 mm. thick, arranged crosswise. The top of this framework is perfectly contiguous with the inside of the crown of the gasholder. The crown itself is made up of iron plates, the outer rows having a thickness of 11 mm., decreasing to 5 mm. toward the middle, and to 3 mm. at the top. The plates used for the side sheets of the holder are: For the top and bottom rows, 6.4 mm.; and for the other ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various

... centre tentacle more than twice the length of the others. These tentacula were so delicate that at the slightest touch they fell off. Those nearest the body were so small as to be almost imperceptible, gradually increasing in length as they approach the centre, and then decreasing to the other side. Centre of paddle-shaped part white, tentacula blue and white, fringed with dark blue ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey

... on a small scale, been set on foot lately, and families are now expected from neighbouring colonies, but our population from obvious causes has increased but slightly during the last five years; on my arrival it was said to be actually decreasing, and there were many reasons why such an opinion was not unreasonable—reduction of the convict establishment threw some out of employment, expirees also desired to quit a country which to them had been a land of bondage, and the prospects of the country were gloomy; ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest

... of these hopeful tendencies, the rural community shows signs of deterioration in many places. Rural population is steadily decreasing in proportion to the total aggregate of population. Interest in education is at a low ebb, the farm children having educational opportunities below those of any other class of our people. For, ...
— New Ideals in Rural Schools • George Herbert Betts

... silver, since they have more than enough of everything else. The letter written to your Majesty by the commander of the fleet which is in Nueva Espana was also examined. He states therein that the trade in thin fabrics imported from these kingdoms to that land is steadily decreasing, on account of the trade which is carried on there with the Philipinas Islands. This letter was the occasion for issuing a decree, to which your Majesty was pleased to set your royal hand, calling for a report from the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair

... ignoring purely civil transactions when an account of them is needed to throw light on the military movements. The author's theory, relative to the origin of the war may be stated thus:—The South saw that, as the North increased in prosperity, it was decreasing, and was losing the balance of power which it had always held since the adoption of the Constitution. It determined, therefore, to force slavery into the new States and Territories; and, failing in this, it foresaw but two alternatives,—either to ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various

... emergencies, the use of purgatives as a routine measure is happily decreasing year by year. For many years I have deplored the use of purgatives before and after operations. That other practitioners are coming to the same conclusion is witnessed by a number of papers recently read in medical societies condemning purgation at ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury

... refused, they swooped down in a posse, and carried off the head of the defaulter. Since the arrival of the Spaniards, the terror of the white man has made them take definitely to the mountains, where they appear to be very gradually decreasing. ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... a square basement surmounted by a circular tower-like structure, with a frieze and cornice. This was erected about B.C. 60, by Crassus. The mausoleum of Augustus was on a much more extensive scale, and consisted of four cylindrical stories, one above the other, decreasing in diameter as they ascended, and the topmost of all was crowned with a colossal statue of the Emperor. The tomb of Hadrian, on the banks of the Tiber—now known as the Castle of Sant' Angelo—was even ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith

... will find its chances of escape decreasing in exact proportion to the distance it has ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi

... historian was, from his learning, thought in his days of superstition to be a wizard. An old woman, who kept an ale-house in St. Andrews, consulted George, in hopes that by necromantic arts he might restore her custom, which was unaccountably decreasing. He readily promised his aid. "Every time you brew, Maggy," says he, "go three times to the left round the copper, and at each round take out a ladle-full of water in the devil's name; then turn three times round to the right, and each time throw ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various

... crouched and shot upward. Her right hand caught the projecting stump, her left easily followed. Clasping the decreasing trunk of the tree with her slim, muscular legs, hanging also by her hands, she dropped her head backward to take observation. The snake hung out, also, toward her, from his tree, then resumed his deliberate climbing. Evidently the task was ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... to the top of the sky. The man worked on. Pan by pan, he went up the stream, the tally of results steadily decreasing. ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London

... produce a few strong fruit-bearing canes in the hill. In other words, you restrict the whole force of the plant to the precise work required—the giving of berries. As the original plants grow older, they will show a constantly decreasing tendency to throw up new shoots, but as long as they continue to grow, let only those survive which are designed to bear the ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe

... fluids are not the consequence of mechanical filtration, but of animal selection; we must look out for another cause, which must be found in the decreasing activity of the glands, as we advance in life; and which affects many of our other secretions as well as that of the mucus, which forms the hair. Hence grey hairs are produced on the faces of horses by whatever injures the glands at their roots, as by corrosive ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... the Bad Effects of Alcohol is Decreasing its Use. It is most impressive that almost everything we have found out about alcohol in the short time that we have been studying it carefully has been to its discredit. Fifty years ago beer and wine, all over the civilized ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson

... The world was to lose Paquita. The drum began its formidable roll. Whirrr! I plunged, and saw the red star rushing towards me. I snatched it and soared upwards. The blue rope seemed to tremble. As I came near the platform at decreasing speed, it seemed to stretch like elastic. It broke! The platform jumped up suddenly over my head, but I caught at the silk ladder. I was saved! There was a fearful silence, and then the appalling shock of hysterical ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... did not feel able to do anything but sit still, which no doubt from every point of view was the best thing she could do, though but for her weariedness she would have felt much inclined to rush off again to look for them, thus decidedly decreasing her ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth

... brass buttons, and thus arrayed, in appearing before their friends and neighbors. Putting at the head of the procession the man who makes his appeal to public attention solely because of the brilliancy of his plumage, and passing down the ranks through the multitudes having a gradually decreasing sense of vanity in their personal accomplishment, Edison would be placed at the very end. Reference herein has been made to the fact that one of the two great English universities wished to confer a degree upon him, but that he was unable ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... become of national consequence, but it has, at the rate of forty to one hundred sixty miles annually, invaded all of the cotton district except that of the Carolinas and Virginia. The damage it does, varies according to the rainfall and the harshness of the winter, increasing with the former and decreasing with the latter. At times the damage has been to the extent of a loss of 50 per cent. of the crop, estimated at 400,000 bales of cotton annually, about 4,500,000 bales since the invasion or $250,000,000 worth of cotton.[6] The output of the South being thus cut off, the ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson

... forwards, it expands its hinder ambulacra, those on the back as well as those on the belly, and contracts its front ones. Fixed to the side of the narrow gallery by their ridges, the hind-pads give the grub a purchase. The flattening of the fore-pads, by decreasing the diameter, allows it to slip forward and to take half a step. To complete the step the hind-quarters have to be brought up the same distance. With this object, the front pads fill out and provide support, while those behind shrink and leave free scope ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... thickest part has a depth of 6 feet; it extends down the hill on the outside and has washed back into the cave, gradually decreasing in quantity, to a distance of 50 feet. The roof, at the front, is 5 feet above the talus; the thickness of the ledge forming it is only 8 feet, the slope of the hill starting from this line. Owing to the restricted width of the ridge, on top, the entire area draining over the ledge ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke

... after her mournfully, and then he looked mournfully out of the window at the decreasing streams. All the excitement was over—the inquest, Harriet's short illness, his own visit to the surgeon. He was convalescent, both in body and spirit, but convalescence brought no joy. In the looking-glass at the end of the corridor he saw his face haggard, and his shoulders pulled ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster

... "Meteorology and Disease," read before the Epidemiological Society in 1852-53, described what he designated ozone periods of the atmosphere, connecting these with storms. When the atmospheric pressure is decreasing, when with that there is increasing warmth and moisture, and when south and southwesterly winds prevail, then ozone is active; but when the atmospheric pressure is increasing, when the air is becoming dry and cold, and north and northeasterly winds prevail, then the presence ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various

... relations, quietly and silently waiting to receive their last breath. On my inquiring whether nothing was ever given to them, I was told that if they did not die immediately, a small draught of water from the Ganges was handed to them from time to time, but always decreasing in quantity and at longer intervals, for when once brought to these places, they must die ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... at all habitable was eight feet in length, five in height at the centre, and three at the sides, the breadth decreasing from eleven to two and a half. It was entirely destitute of furniture, swarming with vermin, and, before the end of the voyage, the fumes of the rotting tobacco, with which the vessel was laden, clinging to the beams, formed a coat nearly an inch in thickness. ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... servants. This is the work for which they seem to have been intended. But nevertheless where they are, life and energy seem to languish, and prosperity cannot make any true advance. They are symbols of the luxury of the white men who employ them, and as such are signs of decay and emblems of decreasing power. They are good laborers themselves, but their very presence makes labor dishonorable. That Kentucky will speedily rid herself of the institution, I believe firmly. When she has so done, the commercial city of that State may perhaps go ahead ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... made a figure in the world under the name of the Chevalier de Rohan. Both these gentlemen had an inclination to learn composition. In this I gave them lessons for a few months, by which means my decreasing purse received some little aid. The Abbe Leon conceived a friendship for me, and wished me to become his secretary; but he was far from being rich, and all the salary he could offer me was eight hundred livres, which, with infinite regret, I refused; since it was insufficient to ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... agreed to this proposal, taking with them some Christian servants whom they had brought from Venice; and travelling toward the north-east, they employed a whole year on the journey, being often obliged to wait the melting of the snow, and the decreasing of the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... abundantly provided and in that which is more meagrely rationed. The two halves of the reed are then restored to their original position and firmly bound with a few turns of wire. We shall see, when the time comes, whether these changes increasing or decreasing the victuals have ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre

... her handkerchief was also a-flutter. An understanding was had through the signalling of the whistles and the two craft rapidly approached each other. Major Starland swung his hat in greeting, again the whistles bellowed across the decreasing space and all was ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... the world. The 8,000,000 bales which are exported annually represent an income to the United States of about $400,000,000. The problem which has called for the most attention is that the average output per acre has been decreasing for years. During the past few years the white farmers have taken active steps to remedy this weakness. Agricultural experiment stations have conducted investigations and the agricultural press has interpreted these results to the actual farmers and has conducted a systematic agitation ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... decade, and in regularly decreasing ratio since, the most difficult problem has been how to provide competent teachers for the instruction of a race crowding and hungry for knowledge. Fortunately, perhaps, in the long view, the teaching of colored youth has never, from the first, in the South, been considered a popular calling, ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 2, June, 1898 • Various

... street-car lines, and the substitution of cable and electric power for that of horses, the use of bicycles and, later, of automobiles, and the improvement of farm-machinery, in which horses are less and less used as power-producers and steam is more common, have been factors in decreasing the demand for these animals. The fluctuation in prices of mules has been parallel to ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... made by Norman, who knew that, as they proceeded northward, the trees would be found decreasing in size until they would appear ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... bell three times. The pumps began to expel water from the ballast tanks; on the pressure gauge, a needle marked the decreasing pressures that indicated the Nautilus's upward progress; then the ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... I looked back, the dance was certainly ebbing now with such smoothly decreasing undulations, that every heart began to beat calmer in response. There was a minute or two of such slow cessation, and then to say she stopped were too gross a description. Motion rather died away from her, and the ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold

... them as they diverged became a little branched, exactly in the same manner as in some zebrine species. The stripes were plainest on the forehead between the ears, where they formed a set of pointed arches, one under the other, decreasing in size downwards towards the muzzle; exactly similar marks may be seen on the forehead of the quagga and Burchell's zebra. When this foal was two or three months old all the stripes entirely disappeared. ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin

... we shall not see, this may lead to conclusions which one shudders to think of. It may be that the time will come on this planet when in a decreasing population struggling for existence from the remains of an exhausted Nature, the greatest good of the greatest number will be found by the deliberate extinction of those least fit, that what is available may be reserved ...
— The Inhumanity of Socialism • Edward F. Adams

... become increased, they first lose their verdure, then grow brown, and at the end of summer cease to live; because their excitability is exhausted by the long continued action of the exciting powers; and this does not happen merely in consequence of the heat of summer decreasing, for they grow brown and die, even in a greater degree of heat than that which in spring ...
— A Lecture on the Preservation of Health • Thomas Garnett, M.D.

... themselves into societies and associations for the purpose of decreasing or doing away with the use of tobacco and alcoholic drinks. They advocate temperance and even abstinence in the use of those things which do not appeal to their own senses; but most of them are far from temperate in their eating. They have very keen vision when searching for weaknesses and faults ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker

... mouth as the compressed air in his lungs expanded under the decreasing pressure. He let himself exhale as he rose, fighting against panic and the impulse to lock the remaining air in his lungs. That would be fatal, he knew, and he willed himself to act properly. He kept his fins moving, ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin

... on a single tree at one and the same time. The heaviest fruit within the ken of the writer weighed 8 lb. 11 oz. They hug the stem closely in compact single rows in progressive stages, the lower tier ripe, the next uppermost nearly so, the development decreasing consistently to the rudiments of flower-buds in the crown of the tree. The leaves fall as the fruit grows, but there is always a crown or umbrella to ward off the rays of the sun. When ripe, the most approved variety ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... 1/6 H. 1/8 I. be 1/12 of an inch. K. 1/16 L. 1/24 M. 1/32 &c—— There may be added as many more, as the Experimenter shall think fit, with holes continually decreasing by known quantities, so far as his senses are able to help him; I say, so far, because there may be made Pipes so small that it will be impossible to perceive the perforation with ones naked eye, though by the help of ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... time to insure that the line should be clear. The powerful engine called Rochdale (No. 247 on the company's register) was attached to two carriages, with a guard's van behind. The first carriage was solely for the purpose of decreasing the inconvenience arising from the oscillation. The second was divided, as usual, into four compartments, a first-class, a first-class smoking, a second-class, and a second-class smoking. The first compartment, which was nearest to the engine, was ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle

... of numbers, the first term of which is equal to the number of things out of which the combinations are to be made, and decreasing by 1, till the number of terms is equal to the number of things to be taken at a time, and the product of all ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green

... Taiwan has a dynamic capitalist economy with gradually decreasing guidance of investment and foreign trade by government authorities. In keeping with this trend, some large government-owned banks and industrial firms are being privatized. Exports have provided the primary impetus for industrialization. The trade surplus is substantial, and foreign reserves are ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... Dynasty I. was arrived at by incorporating the new information supplied by the first date-list to be published. When revising his scheme of chronology in 1900, Rost abandoned his suggested emendation of Sennacherib's figure, but by decreasing his reduction of the length of Dynasty III., he only altered his date for the beginning of Dynasty I. by one year.[17] In his revised scheme of chronology, published in 1903,[18] Lehmann-Haupt retained his emendation of Sennacherib's figure, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... malaria are the only people who can live in it; and the ravages of tigers and endemial disease prevent their numbers from increasing. Those who once emigrate never come back, and population and tillage have been decreasing ever since we took possession, or for thirty-three years. The same process has been going on in other parts of the Nerbudda valley with the same results. In Oude, from the causes above described, lands of the same denomination ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... dexterously to extricate themselves from amid the concourse of animals. Sometimes also a large enclosure is formed with a narrow entrance, and having a road lined with trees leading to it, broad at the outer end, and gradually decreasing in width towards the mouth of the pound. The hunters, forming a wide semicircle in the distance, drive the animals towards it, while people with flags stationed on either side of the road prevent the buffalo breaking through, which are thus induced ...
— The Trapper's Son • W.H.G. Kingston

... better than have recourse to that work for the study of those relations. But speaking generally, there are two plain and simple standards by which to decide whether governments are good or bad. One is the population. Every country in which the population is decreasing is on its way to ruin; and the countries in which the population increases most rapidly, even were they the poorest countries in the world, are certainly the best governed. [Footnote: I only know one exception to this rule—it is China.] But this population must be the natural result ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... by negligence or bad management, the number of these trees is decreasing in the basin of the Amazon, but the forests of seringueira trees are still very considerable on the banks of the Madeira, ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne

... use of sails almost entirely discarded for war purposes, and for mercantile purposes relegated to ships for special service and of continually decreasing importance. He lived to see the steam-engine take its place as the only means for supplying the power required to propel warships, and attain a position of almost equal relative importance in the mercantile marine. He lived to see the paddle-wheel grow in importance and estimation ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord

... might be the lights of the earth, and the salt of the world? What if they have, each in their turn, abused that divine teaching to make themselves the tyrants, instead of the ministers, of the less enlightened? To increase the inequalities of nature by their own selfishness, instead of decreasing them, into the equality of grace, by their own self-sacrifice? What if the Bible after all was right, and even more right than we ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... limits of their endurance. Every man physically able to do so accompanied them. Those who could not kill game could carry it back to the caves. There was no time to spare; already the unicorns were decreasing in numbers and the woods goats were ranging farther ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin

... her eyes the damsel bright Directs, which water face and breast with tears, And ever sees, decreasing to her sight, The beach she left, which less and less appears. The courser, who was swimming to the right, After a mighty sweep, the lady bears To shore, where rock and cavern shag the brink, As night upon the ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... Above the decreasing hum of her car, came the swift, brave shocks of the motor cycle. But, if there was a dread that fell to tightening at her heart, she showed it little. The Maillard still bore swiftly on; she did not ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre

... other hotels, or of residences such as Wemple's, a fight would have started in which the thousands of federal soldiers in Tampico would have joined their civilian compatriots in the laudable task of decreasing the Gringo population of that particular portion of Mexico. There should have been American warships to act as deterrents; but through some inexplicable excess of delicacy, or strategy, or heaven knows what, the United States, when it gave its orders ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London

... it is not decreasing, as we had hoped it would do. From the beginning of December the deaths rose steadily until the end of January. While our usual death-rate is under three hundred it went to four hundred and seventy-four. Then the weather setting in very severe checked it till the end of February, and we all ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty

... forward with all the strength of their puffing engines and throwing up a white line of foam before them with their sharp bows; on the bridges the weather-beaten forms of their commanders, and beside the dull-brown gun muzzles the gun crews, waiting impatiently for the moment when the decreasing distance would at last allow them to use their weapons; far away in the blue shadows of the departing day, like a spirit of the sea, the white steamer, from whose sides poured unceasingly the yellow flashes from the mouths of the cannon. Several shots ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff

... the citizens—present unsurpassed effects of illusion. They are not painted, but modeled in stucco. In perspective they seem each half a mile long, but entering them you find that they run back from the proscenium only some fifteen feet, the fronts of the houses and the statues upon them decreasing in recession with a well-ordered abruptness. The semicircular gallery above the auditorium is of stone, and forty statues of marble crown its colonnade, or occupy niches ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells



Words linked to "Decreasing" :   decrescendo, diminuendo, tapering, depreciative, falling, depreciating, rallentando, diminishing, dwindling, calando, detractive, allargando, decreasing monotonic, depreciatory, ritardando, rit., tapering off, ritenuto



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