Declinacioun

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The changing of a noun or adjective's endings to show case, number or gender ; a gradual falling away from a former state ; an act of turning down a request or offer ; a bending or sloping downward of a surface ; the angular distance of a star north or south of the celestial equator
2. Inflection of a noun for case and number ; a sinking into a worse condition ; the refusing of something offered ; an inclination of a line or surface away from the horizontal ; the measure of a heavenly body's position north or south of the equator
3. The pattern of case endings a noun takes in grammar ; a falling off or weakening over time ; a rejection of an invitation or proposal ; a slope or tilt that dips away from level ; a celestial coordinate giving how far an object sits from the equator

Etymology: Long before it named a noun's case endings, the Latin "declinatio" meant a bending or turning aside, built from "de-" (away) and "clinare" (to lean or bend). Latin grammarians borrowed the idea from Greek, where "klisis" ("bending") described how a noun's ending bends to show its role in a sentence. The English form "declinacioun" came through Old French "declinaison" and, ultimately, from Latin, still carrying that sense of a form bent away from its base. English used the same root for several things that lean away from a line. In astronomy, "declination" is the angle a star or planet sits away from the celestial equator, and the sense of sloping away gave rise to the meaning of a gradual decline in strength or fortune. Each of these senses keeps the original picture of something bending off from a fixed point.