Synonyms:
decrease, diminish, lessen, fall
Meaning: decrease in size, extent, or range; "The amount of homework decreased towards the end of the semester"; "The cabin pressure fell dramatically"; "her weight fell to under a hundred pounds"; "his voice fell to a whisper"
Synonyms:
diminish, belittle
Meaning: lessen the authority, dignity, or reputation of; "don't belittle your colleagues"
Usage examples
It will greatly increase the expense of our courts or else greatly diminish their utility.
A moderate change in that direction cannot but increase rather than diminish the efficiency of labor.
As ignorance is the cause of crimes, the more knowledge and science increases, the more crimes will diminish.
After two or three years they begin to diminish in number, magnitude, and activity until they almost or quite disappear.
You will then, pardon me, Alice, should I diminish your enjoyments, by requesting this gentleman to postpone his chant until a safer opportunity."
A youthful mind is seldom totally free from ambition; to curb that, is the first step to contentment, since to diminish expectation is to increase enjoyment.
They reached a grand conclusion--that all the mutual perturbations of the solar system were periodic--that whatever changes were going on would reach a maximum and then begin to diminish; then increase again, then diminish, and so on.
To reduce hereditary royalty to the condition of an elective authority, the only means that I am acquainted with are to circumscribe its sphere of action beforehand, gradually to diminish its prerogatives, and to accustom the people to live without its protection.
"You will diminish them, indeed," returned the arch girl; "for never did I hear a more unworthy conjunction of execution and language than that to which I have been listening; and I was far gone in a learned inquiry into the causes of such an unfitness between sound and sense, when you broke the charm of my musings by that bass of yours, Duncan!"
It would seem that the domestics had been previously instructed; for, instead of penetrating the thicket, they followed the route of the column; a measure which Heyward stated had been dictated by the sagacity of their guide, in order to diminish the marks of their trail, if, haply, the Canadian savages should be lurking so far in advance of their army.