What's the difference between decay and decline?

Decay


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To pass gradually from a sound, prosperous, or perfect state, to one of imperfection, adversity, or dissolution; to waste away; to decline; to fail; to become weak, corrupt, or disintegrated; to rot; to perish; as, a tree decays; fortunes decay; hopes decay.
  • (v. t.) To cause to decay; to impair.
  • (v. t.) To destroy.
  • (n.) Gradual failure of health, strength, soundness, prosperity, or of any species of excellence or perfection; tendency toward dissolution or extinction; corruption; rottenness; decline; deterioration; as, the decay of the body; the decay of virtue; the decay of the Roman empire; a castle in decay.
  • (n.) Destruction; death.
  • (n.) Cause of decay.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Q In radioactive decay, different materials decay at different rates, giving different half lives.
  • (2) 4) Parents imagined that fruit drinks, carbonated beverages and beverages with lactic acid promoted tooth decay.
  • (3) In the absence of prostigmine, increasing the concentration of ACh in the synaptic cleft did not change the time constant for decay of end-plate currents.
  • (4) The kinetics of bimolecular decay of alpha-tocopheroxyl free radicals (T) was studied by ESR mainly in ethanol and heptanol solvents.
  • (5) For those synapses that were close to the soma the time constant for decay for the non-NMDA component, which was voltage insensitive, ranged from 4-8 ms. 7.
  • (6) In analyzing the results with any regimen it is important to have long follow-up since late relapses do occur and initial very positive results tend to decay with greater numbers of patients treated.
  • (7) In one normal ear, ten noise trauma ears, 11 Meniere disease ears, and 24 eighth nerve lesion ears to reflexes or reflex decay that were suggestive or retrocochlear lesions were observed.
  • (8) Biochemical, molecular, and immunohistologic studies have identified membrane cofactor protein (MCP) and decay accelerating factor (DAF) on trophoblast cells, which could assist in preventing lysis of the cells by complement-activating maternal antibodies.
  • (9) It has been 40 years since the first community in the United States added a regulated amount of fluoride to its public water supply to prevent tooth decay.
  • (10) This could reflect the existence of a parallel set of synapses with fast decay that serve as a shortterm store.
  • (11) However, clemastine caused a decay in subjects' performance in both Experiments I and II, but only on the tracking task.
  • (12) The nylon group had the second highest amount of induced WTR cylinder at one day, which had decayed to ATR cylinder by five months.
  • (13) The observed signals from germinating seeds of Phaseolus aures and decaying leaves of Eucalyptus are presented to show that the signals have characteristic kinetics and intensity.
  • (14) We develop an analogy between the steric hindrance among receptors detecting randomly placed haptens and the temporary locking of a Geiger counter that has detected a radioactive decay.
  • (15) Left ventricular relaxation rate was measured by calculation of a time constant of left ventricular pressure decay (T) derived from an exponential curve fit to the digitized tip-micromanometer left ventricular pressure signal.
  • (16) Factors increasing presynaptic activity (frequency or number of afferent stimulations) during the induction event did not affect the relative amount of LTP decay.
  • (17) Inhibitor activity decayed with time after radiation (2 Gy) with no activity detected at 6 h even though the cells remained in G2 phase, suggesting that either synthesis or activation of additional components is necessary for recovery from G2 arrest.
  • (18) These results are consistent with the previous observation in HTC cells that the decay rate of ODC activity in the presence of cycloheximide correlated well with the proportion of ODC present as a complex with antizyme, suggesting the ubiquitous role of antizyme in ODC degradation.
  • (19) The outward current decays exponentially with an early and late phase.
  • (20) The decay of acid soluble radioactivity was similar in the two groups, although protein synthesis was lowered by vitamin A deficiency.

Decline


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To bend, or lean downward; to take a downward direction; to bend over or hang down, as from weakness, weariness, despondency, etc.; to condescend.
  • (v. i.) To tend or draw towards a close, decay, or extinction; to tend to a less perfect state; to become diminished or impaired; to fail; to sink; to diminish; to lessen; as, the day declines; virtue declines; religion declines; business declines.
  • (v. i.) To turn or bend aside; to deviate; to stray; to withdraw; as, a line that declines from straightness; conduct that declines from sound morals.
  • (v. i.) To turn away; to shun; to refuse; -- the opposite of accept or consent; as, he declined, upon principle.
  • (v. t.) To bend downward; to bring down; to depress; to cause to bend, or fall.
  • (v. t.) To cause to decrease or diminish.
  • (v. t.) To put or turn aside; to turn off or away from; to refuse to undertake or comply with; reject; to shun; to avoid; as, to decline an offer; to decline a contest; he declined any participation with them.
  • (v. t.) To inflect, or rehearse in order the changes of grammatical form of; as, to decline a noun or an adjective.
  • (v. t.) To run through from first to last; to repeat like a schoolboy declining a noun.
  • (v. i.) A falling off; a tendency to a worse state; diminution or decay; deterioration; also, the period when a thing is tending toward extinction or a less perfect state; as, the decline of life; the decline of strength; the decline of virtue and religion.
  • (v. i.) That period of a disorder or paroxysm when the symptoms begin to abate in violence; as, the decline of a fever.
  • (v. i.) A gradual sinking and wasting away of the physical faculties; any wasting disease, esp. pulmonary consumption; as, to die of a decline.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Direct fetal digitalization led to a reduction in umbilical artery resistance, a decline in the abdominal circumference from 20.3 to 17.8 cm, and resolution of the ascites within 72 h. Despite this dramatic response to therapy, fetal death occurred on day 5 of treatment.
  • (2) This trend appeared to reverse itself in the low dose animals after 3 hr, whereas in the high dose group, cardiac output continued to decline.
  • (3) Our results suggest that the peripheral sensitivity to hypoxia declined more than that to CO2, implying a peripheral chemoreceptor origin for hypoxic ventilatory decline.
  • (4) By 24 hr, rough endoplasmic reticulum in thecal cells increased from 4.2 to 7% of cell volume, while the amount in granulosa cells increased from less than 3.5% to more than 10%; the quantity remained relatively constant in the theca but declined to prestimulation values in the granulosa layer.
  • (5) Here we show that this induction of AP-2 mRNA is at the level of transcription and is transient, reaching a peak 48-72 hr after the addition of RA and declining thereafter, even in the continuous presence of RA.
  • (6) We studied the hemodynamic changes caused by bronchoscopy under LA in mechanically ventilated patients and the effect of LA on the endoscopic decline in arterial pO2.
  • (7) Comparison of developmental series of D. merriami and T. bottae revealed that the decline of the artery in the latter species is preceded by a greater degree of arterial coarctation, or narrowing, as it passes though the developing stapes.
  • (8) Foetal serum TSH concentration declined significantly between 20 and 21 days of gestation, reached a low level at delivery, and remained low for several days after birth.
  • (9) The decline in the frequency of serious complications was primarily due to a decrease in the proportion of patients with open fractures treated with plate osteosynthesis from nearly 50% to 19%.
  • (10) Both gp175 and gp250 showed the greatest increase in fucosylation at 10(-5) M, which was also the dose at which RA induced laminin maximally, while the fucosylation of gp400 was greatest at 10(-8) M RA and declined at higher concentrations.
  • (11) Lambing rates approach 1.5 lambs per ewe per year, but a death rate of 23 per cent and an offtake of 27 per cent, means that flock numbers are probably slightly declining.
  • (12) In the absence of haemodialysis, the decline in plasma concentrations of lisinopril and enalaprilat was extremely slow and plasma concentrations were generally high.
  • (13) Steroid-treated steers showed a slight decline in synthesis which was significant (P less than 0.05) at week +5 post-implant while amino acid oxidation was significantly lower at weeks +2 (P less than 0.01) and +5 (P less than 0.05) compared with control animals.
  • (14) Following thawing, the initial motility index (MI) scores of mf cryopreserved by either method were not significantly different from untreated controls; however, over a period of 15 days in culture the MI scores of both cryopreserved groups showed a small but significant overall decline, with the methanol technique producing the lowest scores.
  • (15) The last stems from trends such as declining birth rate, an increasingly mobile society, diminished importance of the nuclear family, and the diminishing attractiveness of professions involved with providing maintenance care.
  • (16) Both strong-stop DNAs are made early during in vitro reactions and decline in concentration later, consistent with postulated roles as initiators of long minus- and plus-strand DNA.
  • (17) Further, four of five patients long after PTRA remained normotensive, and in all patients plasma renin levels declined.
  • (18) Initial exposure of cells to low concentrations of either H2O2 or xanthine oxidase resulted in a transient increase in membrane potential relative to control cells (P less than 0.001), followed by an exponential decline in potential (P less than 0.001).
  • (19) How big tobacco lost its final fight for hearts, lungs and minds Read more Shares in Imperial closed down 1% and British American Tobacco lost 0.75%, both underperforming the FTSE100’s 0.3% decline.
  • (20) However, cAMP also has posttranscriptional effects on the enzyme's synthesis, as evidenced by the 4- to 5-fold enhanced decline seen when cultured hepatoma cells are exposed to cAMP and transcription is inhibited.