What is "declension"

Declension \De*clen"sion\, n. [Apparently corrupted fr. F. d['e]clinaison, 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.)

   1. Inflection of nouns, adjectives, etc., according to the grammatical cases.

   2. The form of the inflection of a word declined by cases; as, the first or the second declension of nouns, adjectives, etc.

   3. Rehearsing a word as declined.

      Note: 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.

mid-15c., ultimately from Latin declinationem (nominative declinatio), noun of action from past participle stem of declinare (see decline (v.)); perhaps via French; "the form is irregular, and its history obscure" [OED].

n. 1 (context grammar English) The act of decline a word; the act of listing the inflections of a noun, pronoun or adjective in order. 2 (context grammar English) A way of categorizing nouns, pronouns, or adjectives according to the inflections they receive.

1. n. the inflection of nouns and pronouns and adjectives in Indo-European languages

2. process of changing to an inferior state [syn: deterioration, decline in quality, worsening]

3. a downward slope or bend [syn: descent, declivity, fall, decline, declination, downslope] [ant: ascent]

4. a class of nouns or pronouns or adjectives in Indo-European languages having the same (or very similar) inflectional forms; "the first declension in Latin"

In linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and articles to indicate number (at least singular and plural), case ( nominative or subjective, genitive or possessive, etc.), and gender. A declension is also a group of nouns that follow a particular pattern of inflection.

Declension occurs in many of the world's languages, and features very prominently in many European languages. Old English was a highly inflected language, as befits its Indo-European and especially its Germanic linguistic ancestry, but its declensions greatly simplified as it evolved into Modern English.