Petering

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Gradually decreasing in intensity, amount, or activity until nearly ending
2. Slowly lessening or weakening over time until it almost stops
3. Waning in strength or size through a gradual and continuous decline

Etymology: "Petering" comes from the verb "peter", which is first recorded in the United States in 1902. Its origin is unknown, and the etymologists' guesses point in two very different directions. One suggestion is that it comes from the mining trade. A vein of ore that "peters out" thins away to nothing, and the verb may have come from the mining term "peter" for the gradual exhaustion of a seam. Where that sense began is debated: one proposal links it to slang "peter" meaning to stop, another to the 18th-century "peeter" of thieves' cant, meaning a trunk or portmanteau, which may connect to St. Peter's keys. Another proposal links it to saltpetre, the potassium nitrate used in gunpowder, with the first element influenced by "salt". Because this link is only a suggestion, it leaves the verb's real beginnings open, and the sense of slowly running out is the one that has lasted.

Synonyms: dwindling, fading, declining

Antonyms: increasing, growing, flourishing