LESSENING

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does lessening mean? 

• LESSENING (noun)
  The noun LESSENING has 1 sense:

1. a change downward

  Familiarity information: LESSENING used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LESSENING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A change downward

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Synonyms:

decrease; drop-off; lessening

Context example:

there was a sharp drop-off in sales

Hypernyms ("lessening" is a kind of...):

alteration; change; modification (an event that occurs when something passes from one state or phase to another)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "lessening"):

shrinkage; shrinking (process or result of becoming less or smaller)

casualty (a decrease of military personnel or equipment)

sinking (a slow fall or decline (as for lack of strength))

attrition (a wearing down to weaken or destroy)

dwindling; dwindling away (a becoming gradually less)

waning (a gradual decrease in magnitude or extent)

 Context examples 

“That is not an unnatural surmise,” said Fitzwilliam, “but it is a lessening of the honour of my cousin's triumph very sadly.”

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

I should like to know his present opinion, as to the probability of the event he has been in dread of; whether he considers the danger to be lessening or not.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

I saw you like a speck on a white track, lessening every moment.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

A lessening of pain following an intervention.

(Pain Relief, NCI Thesaurus)

But the idea of any thing to be done in a moment, was increasing, not lessening, Mr. Woodhouse's agitation.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

The work was soon finished; in a few minutes a tumultuous sea rolled between me and my enemy, and I was left drifting on a scattered piece of ice that was continually lessening and thus preparing for me a hideous death.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

See, how our house and church are lessening in the distance; how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects; how the spire points upwards from my old playground no more, and the sky is empty!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Edward, who had till then looked any where, rather than at her, saw her hurry away, and perhaps saw—or even heard, her emotion; for immediately afterwards he fell into a reverie, which no remarks, no inquiries, no affectionate address of Mrs. Dashwood could penetrate, and at last, without saying a word, quitted the room, and walked out towards the village—leaving the others in the greatest astonishment and perplexity on a change in his situation, so wonderful and so sudden;—a perplexity which they had no means of lessening but by their own conjectures.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

She had neither sympathy nor assistance from those who ought to have entered into her feelings and directed her taste; for Lady Bertram never thought of being useful to anybody, and Mrs. Norris, when she came on the morrow, in consequence of an early call and invitation from Sir Thomas, was in a very ill humour, and seemed intent only on lessening her niece's pleasure, both present and future, as much as possible.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Add to this, the pleasure of seeing the various revolutions of states and empires; the changes in the lower and upper world; ancient cities in ruins, and obscure villages become the seats of kings; famous rivers lessening into shallow brooks; the ocean leaving one coast dry, and overwhelming another; the discovery of many countries yet unknown; barbarity overrunning the politest nations, and the most barbarous become civilized.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)