What's the difference between decline and smother?

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.

Smother


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To destroy the life of by suffocation; to deprive of the air necessary for life; to cover up closely so as to prevent breathing; to suffocate; as, to smother a child.
  • (v. t.) To affect as by suffocation; to stife; to deprive of air by a thick covering, as of ashes, of smoke, or the like; as, to smother a fire.
  • (v. t.) Hence, to repress the action of; to cover from public view; to suppress; to conceal; as, to smother one's displeasure.
  • (v. i.) To be suffocated or stifled.
  • (v. i.) To burn slowly, without sufficient air; to smolder.
  • (v. t.) Stifling smoke; thick dust.
  • (v. t.) A state of suppression.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) As attorneys who practice asylum law, we believe deeply in our nation’s obligation to provide real protection to refugees, but the Obama administration’s willful disregard of existing asylum laws and procedures – and its smothering of due process with detention and rapid deportation – is truly appalling.
  • (2) Brad Guzan produced a superb save to deny Ayew, rushing off his line to smother a left-foot shot from six yards out, and 33 seconds later the Swansea forward’s brother had the ball in the net at the other end.
  • (3) Conveniently, it is not far from the Via Algarviana , allowing us to leave the car and hike the stretch to Alte (16km), passing shuttered houses smothered in creepers in old, abandoned villages.
  • (4) Buffon's understudy Marchetti gets down brilliantly to smother the cross.
  • (5) Instead, the least attractive aspects of London 2012, the ZiL lanes and the Visa-only policy and McDonald's and Coca-Cola as purveyors of sustenance to a sporting nation, were smothered not only by the competition but by the ocean of good humour fostered by the joviality of the volunteers, the inspirational architecture and the attention given to the natural landscape (with apologies to those who had to move to make room for it all).
  • (6) Later, when it was realised that pieces of aluminium and magnesium among this waste could catch fire and cause widespread contamination, inert argon gas had to be pumped in to smother potential blazes.
  • (7) Updated at 5.30pm BST 5.13pm BST Game and second set to Roger Federer Rewind the clocks and smother the future , the venerable Roger Federer isn't Wimbledon history yet.
  • (8) Our descent into Delhi was delayed because of fog, we were told, but the nicotine-coloured blanket smothering this dynamic Indian city was a malignant smog.
  • (9) Bayern are braced for their visitors to employ similar tactics to those that deflated Barcelona in their semi-final, a smothering defence and bite on the break game-plan that has drawn local criticism in print from Günter Netzer and Matthias Sammer.
  • (10) The wall of ice that rises behind Sermilik fjord stretches for 1,500 miles (2,400km) from north to south and smothers 80% of this country.
  • (11) The decision by the MP for Mid Bedfordshire to become the first serving MP to take part in the show, which features famous faces performing in stunts that in the past have included being smothered in insects and eating a kangaroo's penis, could keep her from parliamentary and constituency business for a month.
  • (12) Hazard is sent off for kicking the ball under a ballboy attempting to smother the ball rather than return it.
  • (13) The forward bustled in, stealing the ball and holding off the centre-half as he attempted to wrest it back, before ripping a glorious shot from a horribly tight angle into the far top corner as Ben Foster edged out to smother.
  • (14) He's never quite in control, though, and his attempted lift into the net is smothered by the outrushing Ospina.
  • (15) Before he came to the UK, Darius trained in Poland, learning how to perform a cut-throat shave by smothering an inflated balloon in shaving foam and then removing it with a single blade.
  • (16) Sediment can smother seagrasses, which are the key food source of dugongs and sea turtles, and damage corals.
  • (17) White supremacy in America won’t let our black young children be kids, swim or receive congratulations while graduating without having the breath, light and life smothered right out of them.
  • (18) Liverpool had threatened only sporadically, although Kasper Schmeichel did make a decent save to smother Coutinho’s shot.
  • (19) The Quagga mussel ( Dreissena rostriformis bugensis ), which was found in the river Wraysbury on 1 October and can cover boat hulls and smother native mussels to death, is just one of a group of freshwater species that has been spreading westward from the Ponto-Caspian region in south-east Europe in recent years and which risk causing a “meltdown” as they invade Britain.
  • (20) It added: "We have long argued that stamp duty is a tax on aspiration that smothered the natural demand of the market.