De*clen"sion (?), n. [Apparently corrupted fr. F.
déclinaison, fr. L.
declinatio, fr. declinare. See Decline, and cf. Declination.]
1. The act or the state of
declining; declination; descent; slope.
The declension of the land from
that place to the sea.
T. Burnet. 2. A falling off
towards a worse state; a downward tendency; deterioration; decay; as, the declension of virtue, of science, of a
state, etc.
Seduced the pitch and
height of all his thoughts
To base declension.
Shak.
3. Act of
courteously refusing; act
of declining; a declinature; refusal; as, the declension of a nomination.
4. (Gram.) (a) Inflection of nouns, adjectives, etc., according to the grammatical cases.
(b) The form of the inflection of a word declined by cases; as, the first
or the second declension
of nouns, adjectives, etc. (c) Rehearsing a word as declined.
&fist;
The nominative was held to be the primary and original form, and was likened to a perpendicular line; the variations, or oblique cases, were
regarded as fallings (hence
called casus, cases, or
fallings) from the nominative or perpendicular; and an enumerating of the various forms, being a sort
of progressive descent from the noun's upright form, was called a declension. Harris.
Declension of the needle, declination of the needle.
Hear it pronounced