4. To turn away; to shun; to refuse; — the opposite of accept or consent; as, he declined, upon principle.
DECLINE
De*cline", v. t.
1. To bend downward; to bring down; to depress; to cause to bend, or fall. In melancholy deep, with head declined. Thomson. And now fair Phoebus gan decline in haste His weary wagon to the western vale. Spenser.
2. To cause to decrease or diminish. [Obs.] "You have declined his means." Beau. & Fl. He knoweth his error, but will not seek to decline it. Burton.
3. 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. Could I Decline this dreadful hour Massinger.
4. (Gram.)
Defn: To inflect, or rehearse in order the changes of grammatical form of; as, to decline a noun or an adjective.
Note: Now restricted to such words as have case inflections; but formerly it was applied both to declension and conjugation. After the first declining of a noun and a verb. Ascham.
5. To run through from first to last; to repeat like a schoolboy declining a noun. [R.] Shak.
DECLINE
De*cline", n. Etym: [F. déclin. See Decline, v. i.]