Found 1 items, similar to Declension of the needle.
English → English (gcide) Definition: Declension of the needle Declension \De*clen"sion\, n. [Apparently corrupted fr. F. d['e]clinaison, fr. L. declinatio, fr. declinare. See Decline, and cf. Declination.] 1. The act or the state of declining; declination; descent; slope. [1913 Webster] The declension of the land from that place to the sea. --T. Burnet. [1913 Webster] 2. A falling off towards a worse state; a downward tendency; deterioration; decay; as, the declension of virtue, of science, of a state, etc. [1913 Webster] Seduced the pitch and height of all his thoughts To base declension. --Shak. [1913 Webster] 3. Act of courteously refusing; act of declining; a declinature; refusal; as, the declension of a nomination. [1913 Webster] 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. [1913 Webster] 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. --Harris. [1913 Webster] Declension of the needle, declination of the needle. [1913 Webster]